Passover

Every year Passover invites us, Orders us!, to not only think about slavery and freedom, but to act them out. It's not enough for us to just acknowledge the ideas and principles of slavery and of freedom, we are supposed to physically feel them to make certain that we get it. The Seder brings us as free people to a table centered by the evidence of our slavery. Every year when Jews all over the world eat from the Seder Plate it conjures up an image in my mind that we are taking the "slavery" from outside ourselves and literally ingesting it again. We eat the bitter herb because we are told to, so that while it is in our mouths we can think and talk of nothing else. What gets it down every year? The knowledge that we can swallow it and it will pass through us, (matzo meal notwithstanding!) and that we will not actually have to chew on it for generations. We are free. I try to remember that every year. I spend the time while my mouth is literally filled with bitterness recalling thoughts and actions that I allow to enslave me, and then, remembering that God meant us to be free, I swallow. With immeasurable gratitude and love I wish all of my family and friends and the entire world, freedom and peace of heart this Passover.