Shtiebel Pesach Refections 5781/2021 Edited by Abrielle Fuerst and Rena Pressman

1 Dear friends,

As I was cleaning my car for Pesach (it was pretty chametz-flled!), I found remnants of the entire Shtiebel year. Siddurim. A Tallit. Some crushed up boxes from our move right after Tisha B’Av. A personalized letter written for one of the attendees who was signed up to come to our very frst outdoor gathering, but couldn't make it because of quarantine. Spreadsheets of attendance for the High Holidays and photocopied Yizkor for those we lost to COVID. Eruv repair supplies like PVC cutters and a hard hat. Some dried out hoshanos that must have been extra and didn’t get distributed. Gelt that was stepped on by car passengers one too many times. Some stray mishloach manot. An entire shul in a car. But no Pesach remnants - because the frst Shtiebel Pesach was during our frst lockdown. I took a deep breath as I considered that the cycle was beginning again.

A key experience to Yetziat Mitzrayim and the frst Pesach experience was chipazon - a sense of rush and haste. As we enter a second pandemic Pesach, so many of us feel the chipazon, the rush, that must have been present in that frst experience of Exodus. We want to get out, we want to rush, we want to cross the sea and sing Az Yashir. Return to a sense of normalcy with friends and family. With glimmers of hope around every corner, I pray that we can, very soon. I know that experience of hope is shining bright within me and I can’t wait to be there with all of you. We are approaching redemption.

The rush, however, on its own, is a frail concept. The Sfas Emes notes that if we leave too quickly, it won’t be a davar shel kayama - our redemption won’t last. A quick exit is a perfect recipe for instability. After the Children of Israel leave mitzrayim be-chipazon, quickly, with haste---they are instructed to retreat and return. God wished that the redemption would remain… so that it remains in the people’s hearts even in times of God’s withdrawal, so we were turned around so that the redemption could settle in. Grateful to the Shtiebelers who contributed refections in our reader so we can do that essential work of refection.

For me, this Pesach is about that retreat and refection on the way out. Of taking in the loss, the lessons, the growth, and making sure everything is integrated as a part of our story on the way out of the narrowness of what we’ve been experiencing. Only then can we become true vessels for redemption, and sing even more loudly on the other side of the sea.

Wishing everyone a sweet Pesach, a Chag Kasher V'Sameach.

Rabbanit Dasi Fruchter

2 Netanel Zellis-Paley- The Development of the Seder

Brenna Stein and Charles Schnur-Prayer for Eating Chametz on Passover

Every year at our seder we read the prayer for eating chametz. Wait… what… chametz? On Pesach?!?!

This blessing was written in 1944 in Bergen Belsen, by a Dutch rabbi:

Before eating Chametz say the following with intent & devotion:

Our Father in Heaven! It is known to You that we desire to fulfll Your will and observe the Passover holiday by eating Matzah and safeguarding against Chametz. But our hearts are pained at the captivity which prevents us, and we fnd ourselves in danger of our lives.

3 We are hereby ready to fulfll Your commandments “And you shall live by them (the commandments)” and not die by them, and to observe the caution of “guard yourself and watch your soul/life very much.” Therefore our prayer to You is that You keep us alive, and sustain us, and redeem us speedily, so that we may observe Your laws and fulfll Your will and serve You with a full heart. Amen!

“And then these Jews gathered around Rabbi Davids in Bergen-Belsen and ate their meager ration of bread on the night of Passover.” https://israelb.org/2016/04/passover-bergen-belsen-1944-prayer-eating-chametz/

Now, in our second Pandemic Passover, this blessing is even more relevant. This is not normal. We are still separated from friends and family. Yet, we are incredibly fortunate. We have been kept alive, sustained, maintained our Judaism in spite of everything. And may G-d willing we be redeemed speedily in our days.

Abrielle Fuerst-Gd in the Gray Space

I’m still dancing with you.

That’s what I’m thinking. I am standing on a cliff, as high as I could climb, overlooking those fancy lights on the river. The truth is I had no intention of climbing a cliff. But the moon burned red and bold and brighter than I’d ever seen it (even as a child when everything is painted in the untamed colors of exaggeration), and I wanted to keep looking. The truth is I had no intention of running under the moon.

I’m still dancing with you.

I have no idea what time it is. Only that I am standing on the edge of something, something that will change if only because I dare it. Words have always been strong enough to do that. That’s why prayer works, why creation works, why standing alone on the outcrop at night and making promises of change will change things.

So I’m up here saying that I can do anything. That I don’t have limits. That we can just run away.

--

Where do we stand? Quite probably on the outskirts of Egypt, the part where we are looking back across an ocean. It was never home, that place we can’t return to, but it was all we knew as one. I wonder if we missed that barest human comfort – a familiar space. We must have, after all.

4 80% of our people will be forgotten on the other side of that sea. They’ll be Egyptian, and then they’ll be nothing.

Are we the brave ones?

I’d been told long ago that the pandemic is a journey. I’d been told, in my dear friend’s words, that we are crafting the ship as we sail, but we are not returning to the shore we sailed from. Not ever. Not once.

Is this what they felt three thousand years ago, staring across that ocean?

--

I’m still dancing with you.

--

What do you hold to, in times of transition? When you no longer recognize the colors of the world. When it spun too fast and kept on spinning, when there is nothing left to unpack and you’re still fnding boarding passes folded with your socks. And your neighbor’s socks. What do you hold?

When you live alone.

When you’re wearing a white dress and running through the wildest weather, because that’s where you fnd the truest parts of yourself. Because you’d see too much if you stood still.

I answered that question once. I hold on to shabbos candles.

Those things are timeless.

--

Can you miss Egypt? What happens then?

--

Someone I trust very much told me I’m a bird.

I think the bird knows its nest is temporary. That’s the beauty of it all. If you surrender to the wind, you can ride it, remember? Toni Morrison knew what she was talking about. How fortunate a thing to build our homes in things that change, and fnd peace there.

So I ride the winds, wondering what year we’re in, and why I’m out of waffes, and if I lost my mind a little fghting in the snow.

5 Perhaps I’ve forgotten how to be human.

--

I think it’s complicated. Pesach is marked as Zman Cheiruteinu, the time of our freedom. It was the universal redemption, when we’d fallen as far as we could humanly fall, and Hashem swept in with signs and with wonders. Miracles profound enough to reshape everything.

Oh, but we fell so damn hard in the presence of such promise. Time and time and time again. The seas were split on our behalf, Gd stood by us in unmasked glory, and we in turn crafted the idol of our oppressors.

So I don’t think we found Gd there.

In your unfailing love you will lead

the people you have redeemed.

We didn’t need much, that day by the sea. Miriam sang a song, one of the ten profound enough to reweave the world a little. The empires of Egypt crashed beneath the ocean, the wealth of dynasties regurgitated at its banks, and yet Miriam’s song remained.

In your strength you will guide them

to your holy dwelling.

We built our home in words that day. Standing there, on the outskirts of everything. That was the real moment when we became a nation. When the wrong endings were erased and we could have been anything, and we chose to sing.

I told you words have power to them.

--

I think Pesach is brave, if a bit famboyant. Perhaps you have to be, to reach through a necropolis and redeem a nation. To change the way the world is run, when that world was so established and sure of itself. Even to this day, Pesach disrupts everything and changes how our world works. If Pesach has always been a little high-maintenance, it deserves to be. It is authentic in its magnitude.

But Gd lives in the transitions. In the moments when we can’t go back and can’t see where we’re going. When there is nothing stable enough to hold on to. When we miss what was the most.

6 You know, we didn’t choose it. This year, we never had the choice to stand among the Jews who did not leave Egypt. We were thrust forward from the world we knew, to look for Gd in this one.

And so I perch on my cliff like the bird I’ve been told I am, and from up there I dare the world: Lead me to freedom.

Pesach - “Chag HaCovid” - Richard Gering

It is almost March, time to ponder and prepare for the Second Covid Pesach. Time to obsess again about the inability to see family, friends, Israel, or our favorite Passover Hotel. Time to discuss the “Zoom Seder” and for the Zoom camp to try to persuade the non-Zoom camp about the error of their ways. NO. A strange thought came to me, perhaps it is because the last 90 plus days I have been immersed in Daf Yomi – Pesachim with a small band of travelers. Or, perhaps it is because I have a large Dafka nerve. I think that Pesach has prepared us for the challenge of Covid. And, in fact Covid may prepare us for Pesach. For me, Zoom Pesach is wrong. Ignore all the halachic arguments. Zoom misses the essential point. Pesach is our individual story not just our communal story. Our personal exodus from a known environment into an unknown desert, armed only with faith in something we did (and do) not fully understand and could not (and cannot) see. Zoom trivializes our personal exodus. It presents a “lifeline” that mitigates the “time travel” that the mitzvah requires. Zoom obscures this issue and shields us from the mitzvah of personally leaving Mitzraim and the retelling our individual and communal story. Weird – yes. Counterintuitive – defnitely. But the more I let this strange thought marinate, the more convinced I am that it has merit. Let me briefy digress on how Pesach has evolved and then delve a little deeper into how Covid can help us commemorate this foundational moment in our peoplehood. I have loosely collapsed Passover into six stages (P1 through P6) starting in Egypt and ending in 2020. P1: The frst Pesach – Egypt. We made the Pesach sacrifce, sprinkled blood on our doors to protect our household, roasted it, and ate in a hurry in our house with only our household. We left our homes in the dead of night with what we could physically carry and a promise of freedom and the goal of becoming a community, a people, living in public without fear. No retelling of the exodus story - we simply lived it. P2: Pesach wandering in the desert.

7 We wandered with our temporary mobile worship site, we whined about what we gave up, we developed traditions and rules about the pesach sacrifce and we understood those rules to be from our Torah. The Torah that HaShem gave us in the desert because we had the courage to act when we fed on the night of P1. And we retold the story of P1 as we slowly became a people. P3: Pesach and the Temple We embarked on nation building. We settled in our land, established a permanent holy city and holy site and continued our practices developed in P2. We physically gathered together each year for the commemoration at our holy site in our holy city. P4: Pesach after losing the Temple and gaining the Haggadah Losing the Temple the second time was an existential crisis only resolved by replacing our sacrifce based and geographically limited observance with rabbinic rules and a different form of prayer and lifestyle. The Haggadah encapsulates how we observe that night as we retell what happened on P1 as we returned the commemoration back to our homes. P5: Pesach in our life time - enter the humble brag – more showy, bigger = better, and “frummier”. P5 is a natural or perhaps unnatural outgrowth of increased fnancial stability, and perceived societal stability for Jews in Israel and around the world. I feel that the holiday has become more fashy and elaborate. The “observance” more exacting. Perhaps it is FOMO or humble bragging but it seems the level of kashrut and the size of the seder is now paramount – not our exodus. Bigger and more elaborate but maybe not better. The net result has been that it has become harder for many to get to the real meaning of the chag. P6: Pesach COVID - alone at home, back to our roots? And along came covid. Now we had (have) some diffcult and defning choices – return closer to P1 or use technology to keep P5. Some that could/would not use technology went to P2 (wandering and whining about what we lost). But what if we view this as an opportunity? A diffcult transition, but still an opportunity. ****** Perhaps my characterization is a little harsh and a tad snarky. I concede that point. But in return, reread my timeline and recognize that I have captured something. I believe we have added to the ritual but in doing so lost, or made it more complicated, to observe. The isolation from the society in which we live, created by the covid pandemic, I imagine is similar to what was felt that P1 night eating hastily with bags packed. A meal surrounded by the darkness of fear, uncertainty and loneliness. A darkness that cannot be removed by technology but only by our individual faith.

8 Reducing the size of the gathering to the household allows all to participate. Allows the meal to be flled with refection and thought that is not drowned out by the general noise of a large banquet. We end our evening with an aspirational statement (Next year in…) A statement that does not have a defnitive answer. For too long that statement has been a tag line – rendered less meaningful because we can simply get on a plane. In 2020 that changed and we are again forced to confront the uncertainty and through it the power of that longing. Singing “Next year in Jerusalem” takes us back to a place and time when that was not a simple question of taking vacation time and booking a ticket. Many of us are not that comfortable or able to “run a seder”. We now can rely only on those in the household to conduct the seder. No longer able to go to the family with the “great leader” the one who “knows all the tunes” the one who has the best pesadike deserts. Our imperfect seder honors the Chag – we honor it by truly retelling the story ourselves. We were not perfect in P1, why should we be perfect today? So let us resolve to observe this year with and within our household. Let us resolve to fnd a way turn this into a strength – a different and a positive way to retell our own exodus. Not knowing the end of the story is how we observed P1, P2 and even P4. Let us return to that time and lose the hubris that we had before Covid that we knew the ending of this great – and ongoing – story of us. A story of us as individuals and as a people. As we prepare for Pesach, let us rededicate ourselves to our exodus as individuals and as a People. And let us remember that the festival of freedom always was, to use a 21st century term, our festival of personal and communal resilience.

Rena Fruchter - We Were Slaves - Now We're Free

Thank G-d, I have enjoyed the freedom of good health during most all of my lifetime until last March. I can honestly say that my body never before felt oppressed – victimized - even enslaved – in the powerful, despairing way I felt when the powerful claws of the Covid 19 disease brought me to my knees last March, and put me in the grasp of dire circumstance over which I had no power. My body was trapped, and it made it pretty impossible to fnd the energy to inspire some hope in my soul. Such is the experience of severe illness, I think. The body, a sheltering temple for my soul, couldn’t do its job. Oh, how remarkable it is when the body can do the job as Hashem intended it to do! Asher Yatzar et HaAdam b’Chochmah….! Thanks to G-d who created the human with Wisdom……

Now that I’m well – and by this Pesach, I will have had both vaccines - I can look back to when I was so sick in order get a glimpse into the situation of the enslaved person – choked for fresh

9 air, reeling with discomfort and misery, blocked from fnding even a spark of hope and inspiration . Both physically and spiritually disabled.

How remarkable it is when I read about enslaved people – enslaved by illness or by inhumane circumstance - and how they are able to fnd hope and light despite being deep in pain and despair – despite reaching out from the depths.

I have always considered myself an empathetic person. And on Pesach, we are meant to think of ourselves as if we, personally, had left Mitzraim. Why is our immersion in those depths a necessary part of our Pesach experience? I think that this directive is to encourage us to identify more deeply with the experience of slavery – even beyond a cerebral process. Hashem gave us whole bodies in order that we take in the world, experience humanity, work with G-d on Tikkun. So in as much as our bodies have at times felt imprisoned, enslaved, victimized, abused – we should bring the visceral, deep nature of that understanding to our Pesach experience. As we identify with the despair, we fnd our passion and commitment to call out and cure enslavement in all its forms.

Hannah Geller - It’s not a shot I’m waiting for

Out of context, you might mistake me for a drug addict.

But nope.

I’m your average 23 year old American girl. I’m not sure what it means to be young and feel like anything is possible. I think I’m supposed to be having crazy nights, staying up late and drinking wine, making friends, going on dates, hosting dinner parties. I think I’m supposed to sit in coffee shops and people watch until our eyes meet and I get bashful, diverting my gaze, though I wish I didn’t. To be praying in a synagogue and getting drunk on Purim, jumping from one house to the next with a bottle in hand and no cups in sight. I think I’m supposed to be hugging strangers, telling them how pretty they look in a gross bathroom that we pile into so we can check our lipstick. Isn’t that how it’s supposed to be?

Oh wait, I remember now. I’m supposed to feel alive. Like the summer breeze blowing salty wisps of hair into my mouth as I smile. Like I could book a plane for this evening to who-knows-where because it doesn’t matter. Like the whole world can stop for me. For you. Like we can convince them to keep the place open just a liiiiiittle longer because it’s my birthday and it’s really a miracle we’re all reunited and who knows when we’ll be together again. No, I don’t want to

10 schedule my next dentist appointment because maybe I’ll be in grad school in Israel or on a motor scooter in Thailand or learning to make wine in Argentina. Yeah, things are really up in the air right now. Why don’t we check back in 6 months?

I remember how it felt. I remember when we could see who had bright pink braces. When lipstick didn’t sit on the shelf like an artifact from the ancient “Pre-COVID era.” Oh, you forgot yours? It’s ok, I have 20, borrow mine. While you’re at it, let me fx your hair. We’ll get a cab — maybe the one where strangers jump in — and we’ll head to the jazz club. Or the restaurant. Or anywhere but here because it’s been a year and I’m really so tired of this madness. This reality in which we convince ourselves that if we try hard enough, we can reach through the screen and give them a hug. Like it’s normal to socialize in the snow and I could easily be confusing you with someone else because I can’t tell if it’s you under all those layers or someone with similar eyebrows.

So what happened to 22? Can I get a refund for the past year? I keep calling but they say to wait until the next representative is available, so I’m listening to this annoying hold music on repeat.

I’m waiting for that sweet dose of magic that will make it all go away. Out of context, you might mistake me for a drug addict. But nope. You heard me right.

I’m waiting for that call. For the sea to split. For someone to tell me: We have the special potion that will turn you back into a normal girl. Just close your eyes and click your heels three times. Drink the unknown liquid until you see a world without masks and hand sanitizer. Run until you reach the end of the earth and maybe by then it will be your turn. And don’t get tired or give up hope along the way, because it’s all going to be worth it, trust me.

So I’m still running. I’m still zooming and wearing my darn mask and waiting to be next in line.

Because it’s not a shot I’m waiting for. It’s my whole life.

11 Richard Gering- Some Personal Thoughts

Some personal thoughts as we retell and remember our exodus from Egypt:

I have found increased diffculty with Pesach these past years as, in part, the central tenet of standing at Sinai together has for me frayed – perhaps a general disenchantment with religion, or irritation at how our tribe views its members living inside Israel. Probably a combination.

Thinking about Pesach this year and my general lack of interest and observance I was once again struck by the greeting we use - - particularly the inclusion of the word kasher.

Why on this of all holidays?

A Blessing… really? Are you serious!

Most parents focus on the hardship of kashering for Pesach.

Most kids focus on the hardship on not being able to eat food deemed non-pesadich

Why the continued focus on the minutiae, and the same focus every year – and then of all things to place it front and center in our yom tov greeting?

Where is the grand theme of freedom?

Why do this again and again?

Do we actually celebrate at the seder or just go through the motions?

A thought struck me – probably not original, but it made sense for me this year.

The kashering and the minutiae is the point.

The pain of the preparation is not to remind us of our hardship IN Egypt

It is to remind us of all those tiny steps that we took, once we LEFT Egypt.

Leaving Egypt was but a step

Sinai was but a step

Those steps, and all the other steps, were needed and could not be circumvented before we became a people in our own land.

Just like there are no shortcuts when kashering for pesach

And that was not the end.

12 These lofty ideals are built with tiny not so glorious increments – taking forever to build and seconds to erode.

Freedom is a lofty goal but an extremely fragile state.

As we work through the tiny steps, retelling our story, let us remember why those steps are important.

We need to repeat the tiny steps to appreciate the goal and understand its fragility.

And as we say "chag kasher v'same'ach"

Let us remember it is a blessing and not something to complain about.

Wishing you a happy and kosher Pesach.

Atara Goodman - A Meta Analysis of Formative Story Telling

Group identity is based in the stories that we identify as our own, much as the Harry Potter fandom identifes that story as one close to our hearts, except these stories are true of our universe. People want a piece of stories that mean something to us, like getting autographs and collecting memorabilia. We as Jews all remember our shared history and unite as a people. This is, in fact, the singular story of how we became one people under God.

This narrative identity is not unique. It is similar to the story French people tell about their history and shared identity as Frenchmen.

If someone converts, it is like their soul was Jewish even before they made the conscious decision. Because all Jewish souls were at Mount Sinai, their soul was among the ones present. On the other hand, it doesn’t quite work that way with countries. The metaphor falls fat because although one may appreciate French culture, and their children may assimilate into French society, their history started two decades ago, rather than hundreds of years.

In essence, the oldest traditions are the strongest, and in every culture across the world, the stories we tell shape our understanding of both our history and the present world. It is sort of about reaffrming that our past is ours, and it matters, and it makes us who we are, and everyone telling stories from Papua New Guinea to France to the hundreds of thousands of sedarim happening all over the world in this tradition we are all reaffrming what it means to be human and to be part of an identity larger and longer than us.

13 Atara Goodman - The Hero’s Journey

The Hero’s Journey is a tale as old as time, one of the most successful adventure narrative formats. This format highlights character development, how the situation changes with new information, and almost always, a happy ending with some twists and turns along the way. Let’s see how well Moshe’s story fts into this classic structure as I retell Moshe’s story from a new perspective.

1. The Ordinary World-There is a great deal of setup in Moshe’s early life. We know that the Egyptians were killing all the baby boys because of a prophecy. This is the world in which Moshe was born. We’ve heard this story growing up, but if this were a book I was writing, he’d be born into a dystopian nightmare where gods have cruel animal heads, the Pharoah ruled with an iron fst, and Gen S6 (S for slave) was being decimated. Jews were doing forced labor and were literally the whipping boys of the Egyptians. Into all of this, enter Moshe, who was raised in the most powerful place, where we might reasonably assume, he was a bit sheltered.

2. The Call to Action-This is the direct threat to the hero’s safety, family, or way of life; the disruption of the normal the hero lives in. Thus, when Moshe saw the mistreatment of the Jews, he realized he had to do something, and acted. This does not mean he accepted the call for Moshe has not yet begun on the journey to solve the larger problems at work.

3. Refusal of the Call-I’m sure we all know where this is going: the burning bush. Moshe meets with God who tells him to meet with Pharaoh and to take his people out of Egypt. Remember that Moshe fed because Pharaoh wanted to kill him. Generally, Moshe seems to be worried about his sway over the people and Pharaoh, especially with a speech impediment. The hero must have doubts, for it is this humbleness and these doubts that show the potential for greatness.

4. Meeting the Mentor-for Moshe, this step is happening simultaneously with his refusal of the call. Traditionally the mentor gives the hero something he needs whether it be advice or an object. Here, Hashem (the mentor) tells Moshe what to say and gives him the ability to turn his staff into a serpent and his hand like a leper.

5. Crossing the threshold-At this point, our hero is ready and willing to go on the adventure equipped with his tools. This is the divide between familiar and new. Moshe leaves Yitro’s house and goes back to Egypt.

14 6. Tests, Allies and Enemies-In this section, the Hero’s challenges increase, the reader gains more character insights, and the hero prepares for the ordeals ahead. Moshe gains Aharon as an ally, and together they attempt to talk to Pharaoh about letting the Jews go. Pharaoh imposes harder labor on the Jews, which upsets Moshe. Moshe causes the plagues and goes back to Pharaoh, whose heart his continually hardened by God.

7. Approach to the Innermost Cave-When our hero prepares before taking the leap into the great unknown, and prepares to face danger. After the plague of darkness, Pharaoh says to Moshe that he will die if Moshe sees his face again. And so, as the Jews prepped for the death of the frstborn, Moshe must go to Pharaoh one last time as he approaches the innermost cave, to mock the Egyptian gods and to openly rebel as they prepared to leave.

8. Ordeal- a dangerous physical test the hero goes through, drawing upon all his skills and knowledge. The Jews fnally left Egypt with money and cattle, and once they were camped against the Red Sea, Pharaoh saw it was a weak position and pursued them. Moshe’s primary job was keeping faith in God and trying to prevent the people from panicking. Moshe began this journey with very little confdence, but his words of strength came not from God, but from himself. So, through Moshe, God split the sea, and the Egyptians were drowned.

9. Seizing the Sword-At this point in the Hero’s journey they get a reward. In this case, it’s the freedom they’ve spent so long dreaming about.

10. The Road Back- This is where the hero begins returning to the ordinary world. Remember that in this case, the Jews cannot return to their old ordinary. They are free from Egypt and are forging ahead to create their own normal. Acclimating the Jews to this normal is Moshe’s challenge in this part of the story. Already they complain of bitter water and not having meat. He acts as an intermediary between the Jews and God, but he also does some of his own problem solving, which sometimes works out well, and other times not as much.

11. Resurrection-This is when the hero has his most dangerous encounter. It’s when the heat of the fre gets so hot, that he is fnally forged. If he fails, others will suffer. So, Moshe goes up to the mountain to receive the Torah. The people miscounted and thought Moshe was late in returning from the mountain, and thus Aharon makes the golden calf, a highly deadly encounter for the Jews. God is mad and tells Moshe he wants to kill all the Jews and make a nation from just Moshe. Moshe pleads with God on their behalf, but Moshe himself was angry. He threw the tablets and they broke.

15 12. Return with the Elixir-the hero returns wiser, braver, and stronger and with proof of a successful journey. Moshe returns to the Jews and provides the best Elixir in the world, the Torah. In the usual story, the hero returns home to do this, but as we know, it will take another forty years for the Jews to get home, but perhaps that’s just another quest.

It should be pointed out that this structure may work with Moshe’s entire life, however once they leave Har Sinai as a nation, they embark upon the Hero’s Journey as a nation.

As I’ve personally been thinking about heroics and the Hero’s Journal, a journal that helps you turn your own goals into a quest, I realize that one of the reasons it is so stunning that Moshe Rabeinu’s narrative fts into this structural design is because if his real life is a quest guided by God, then on some level, our lives, too are guided by God, and our quests can and will be successful.

Evonne Marzouk- Seder in Spite of Everything

We never had a Passover seder in my house when I was growing up. Sometimes we’d be invited to someone else’s house, and would go there. Sometimes, I guess, not. Before I was married, the closest I ever came to making a seder was with the Bubbe of a then-boyfriend. I remember she had me crush walnuts for charoset. She seemed a little surprised I had never done it before.

My mother, may her memory be for a blessing, never had a seder in her house when she was growing up, either. In fact, she told me that when she was a child, she was embarrassed to fnd herself the only Jewish kid at lunch eating bread on Passover. She didn’t want me to feel that way, she said, when we frst joined a synagogue. She wanted me to have roots. She found it ironic that my roots grew so deep I ended up an Orthodox Jew.

Because we didn’t know how to make seder ourselves, when my husband and I got married, we went to our rabbi’s house on the frst two nights of Pesach. Though we had a baby, and then bought a house, we continued to wander for sedarim, seeking invitations where we could fnd them. We didn’t plan a seder for the frst time in our own house until our son was old enough to ask us to. Our frst seder was nearly spoiled by a literal grasshopper in the parsley I was checking!

Now many years later, making seder has become something I mostly know how to do. Our annual “lessons learned” notes remind me each year how long to boil the potatoes (16 minutes), how to roast the shank bone (in heavy duty foil), and how to prepare the horseradish (in little pieces for me, and in chunks and rings for those who like it hot). We know that

16 mini-marshmallows are the key to getting kids to stay up through the plagues, and that we’ll have to sing certain songs two or three times with every tune my sons know. Maybe this year, we’ll even get to start cooking before mid-day? We can always hope.

In my novel The Prophetess, I tried to capture some of my own experience as a Jew who started out as an outsider to her own tradition, but found her way deep into its beauty and meaning. Through the main character Rachel, I wanted to show what that feels like, and most importantly, that it’s possible, even for a Jew who starts out feeling far away.

Pesach plays a special role in Rachel’s story. After the death of her grandfather, her family can no longer join other aunts and uncles for seder. Though Rachel’s mother has left the traditional Jewish observance she was raised with, she decides to prepare seder for the frst time herself.

During the seder, Rachel refects: “Tonight, I concentrated on the tradition of it all. Jewish families had been hosting seders like this for thousands of years, and here my candles still fickered against the wall. I was deeply proud of my mother for continuing the tradition in spite of everything.”

Whatever a seder looks like, there is so much power and holiness in just doing it. Though we’ve been apart so much over this year, Jews have shown the resilience of thousands of years by continuing our traditions the best way we can, in spite of everything.

In my synagogue in Silver Spring, MD, outdoor services have been held all year, in the heat and bitter cold. When my mother’s yarzheit came, I said kaddish in the shul parking lot, looking up at the moon in the pale blue morning sky. Others have been saying kaddish there all year long. Keeping the tradition going, no matter what it takes or how it has to look in a year like this one.

My reading and book program at the Shtiebel, in February 2020, was one of my last before the whole world shut down. Because of that connection, I have seen through emails and social media posts all the efforts of this beautiful community to hold together in such trying times. There is so much for you to be proud of… and so much work left for us all to do.

May we go from strength to strength, and may we see each other again, in real life or on zoom, very soon. Next year in Jerusalem, or at least, together in our homes! B’ezrat Hashem.

Shoshana Leshaw- Questioning: An Act of Faith

Asking questions is a central part of seder night. During this past year, when asking questions brought about few answers, I thought about the value of questioning differently. In his book

17 Judaism’s Life-Changing Ideas, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks zt”l suggests how to effectively question in response to hardship. He writes:

“...the wrong question to ask is, ‘Why has this happened?’ We will never know. We are not God, nor should we aspire to be. The right question is, ‘Given that this has happened, what then shall I do?’ The answer to this is not a thought but a deed. It is to heal what can be healed… to bring light to the dark places of our and other people’s lives… Let no one imagine this is easy. It takes a supreme act of faith.”

Productive questioning is grounded in faith and challenges us to act. The questioning embedded in the seder night, although centered around events long ago, invites discussion, refection, and action that epitomizes productive questioning.

In the story of the exodus that we read at the seder, the Jewish people leave Egypt to fnd themselves again pursued by their enemies. They ask Moses, “What is this that you have done to us to take us out of Egypt?” Moses encourages their faith in God saying, “do not fear! Stand fast and see the salvation of God that He will perform for you today…” In an ultimate act of faith, the Jewish people plunge into the Red Sea as Moses splits the waters with his staff per God’s command. Upon seeing the Egyptians behind them consumed by the sea, the verse states that the Jewish people “revered God, and they had faith in God and in his servant, Moses.” Their initial doubt and disappointment - manifested in their question - transforms to an improved relationship with God through a combination of faith and action.

This central story of the exodus is offered in varying forms as a response to each of the four children’s questions in the Haggadah. For the child who does not know how to ask, we are instructed to “open [the conversation] with him. As it is said, ‘And you will speak to your son on that day saying ‘It is because of this that God acted for me when I left Egypt’.’” According to some views, this child can be understood as complacent and passive about his Torah observance. The mention of the exodus story and the instruction to open a conversation suggests an attempt to awaken the questioning nature of this individual, encouraging personal refection and action.

When our faith is challenged, perhaps reminding ourselves of God’s hand in our lives can spur us to make positive change and renew our trust in Him. After a year of unknowns, may we feel empowered to ask questions that spark action, strengthen our relationships, and solidify our faith in God.

18 Simon and Bertina Cravens (with help from Dad Tim)- Thoughts about their Journey and Pesach

It’s easy to describe the journey we’ve been on for the last year, since our journey began on July 21 when we were born, with fve brothers and sisters, in a home in Egypt. At least we think it was in Egypt – Delaware County is part of Egypt, right? We spent our frst few weeks playing and eating and having lots of fun. We had to be fed by the humans we lived with because our mother had seven kittens. A human came to visit us one day, and the two of us went over and started playing with him and then napping against his leg. A few weeks later, we had to go to the hospital to have operations, and a couple of days later, the human came back and picked us up, put us in a carrier, and drove us to our new home.

We love our new home. There is a lot to explore, with lots of books. We both love to read, play with toys, and explore boxes. Books are great because you can read them and then you can take a nap in the boxes they came in. (Simon: Or, if you’re my sister, you probably try to eat the box.) We get to eat lots of good food. Most of it comes in cans and is delicious and smells great (although the human doesn’t like the smell), and we also get to eat treats, which are delicious. Our human eats all sorts of weird stuff that smells really bad. He only eats one thing that is good, and that is challah. Challah is scrumptious. But the human is mean and only lets us have a couple of bites while he eats the rest of it. Rabbanit Dasi gave him challah one Shabbat it was the best challah ever! But we each only got a small bite.

We hear that we won’t have challah during Pesach because it contains chametz. But there is something called matzah and we look forward to trying that. We’ve also heard about maror, but we’re not going to try that – it doesn’t sound like a food kittens would like. But we listen to the daf yomi class every day and read the Gemara when our human isn’t using it and we’ve been hearing and reading about the korban Pesach and that sounds REALLY good. We want to try lamb! We’ve also been curious about geflte fsh, but our human is selfsh and won’t let us try it.

We’ve learned some interesting things from the Gemara. Even if the Torah had never been given, humans would learn modesty from us, the cats! (Eruvin 100b) Humans are so lucky to have us as their role models! We also learned that cats often hunt snakes that get into houses (Pesachim 112b), but we’ve only seen one snake in our house, and it has cloth skin flled with sand, so we’re not sure why people have to be careful around snakes, because we don’t think snakes are dangerous.

19 We look forward to learning more from the Gemara and reading more and playing more and sleeping in boxes.

חג שמח מהחתולים!

Tim Cravens- My Daf Yomi Journey

I am an unorthodox participant in the life of an Orthodox shtiebel, since I am not Jewish – yet I am drawn to a Jewish journey as part of my soul’s development, not knowing where it will take me. I have used the time of the pandemic quarantine to explore this journey. Learning daf yomi with the Shtiebel community has become an incredibly meaningful and central part of my daily spiritual practice through which I connect with the Divine.

I majored in Judaic studies in college, with a minor in Hebrew, graduating in 1988, and I took a Talmud class, which I enjoyed immensely, an introduction taught by my advisor, a Conservative rabbi. I encountered pieces of Talmud in other classes, including the story of Beruriah. When her husband prayed for vengeance against bandits who had robbed him, citing the last p’suk of Tehillim 104, “Let sinners disappear from the earth, and the wicked be no more” – Beruriah said the reading should be “Let SINS disappear from the earth, and the wicked will be no more” – because they will have done teshuvah and no longer be wicked – and he did so and they repented. I have thought of this interpretation each time I have recited that psalm in the intervening 30-odd years! I have other favorite passages in the Gemara as well. I took many Jewish studies classes in graduate school as well.

I attempted to read daf yomi on my own a couple of times – I managed to read just the English text, with no commentary, for Nazir, but did not make it far into Sotah. Again, last year, when the daf yomi cycle began anew, I attempted to read Berachot on my own, this time from the Koren volume with its notes – but only lasted a couple of weeks. I discovered the Shtiebel at the Center City Kehillah pre-Shavuot gathering, where Rabbanit Dasi gave a short d’var Torah, and decided to check the Shtiebel out and quickly started attending daf yomi, which has become one of the highlights of my day.

It is meaningful to me for several reasons. First, although some people attend daily, some less often, and some only occasionally, we have nonetheless truly become a sacred community doing the sacred work of learning sacred text, and as it says in Pirkei Avos chapter 3, mishnah 6-ish (depending on the version): “When ten sit together and occupy themselves with Torah, the

20 Shechinah abides among them, as it is said: “God stands in the congregation of God” (Psalm 82:1). How do we know that the same is true even of fve? As it is said: “This band of His He has established on earth” (Amos 9:6).” (We almost always have at least fve, and often more than 10.) There are times when we make jokes and puns, there are times we are angry at the injustice expressed by the rabbis (and Rabbanit Dais has instituted a “misogyny tzedakah jar” for such occasions), there are times when we study halacha that people fnd relevant, and there are times when we are moved to see incredible glimpses of the Divine Presence, the Shekhinah, in the world through beautiful insights either explicit or implicit in the text. We get to know each other – who insists on the p’shat, who wants to wax allegorical and theological (the company into which I fall), who brings up relevant historical information to illuminate the text, who shares linguistic insights. All of our questions and comments and insights and bad puns come together to make a holy experience that makes me, at least, want to exclaim with Yaakov, about our Zoom room or parking lot table where we gather, ““How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” (Gen. 28:17)

Liba Vaynberg - The odometer

I'm driving again. I'm driving back. I call my mother to pass the time. She's become a squirrel hunter. She's caught six squirrels and displaced them. The territorial little twits have decided that my father's garden is theirs. They bite a kumquat and discard it. Fickle dames. They've decimated harvest. How do you know they're female? Of course they're female, she says. Well. At frst she didn't want to tell me about it because she thought I would have "humane concerns." Can you have those about squirrels, mama? But now she can't help herself. She drives them to some valley. One by one. I ask if she's worried they'll come back Home.

21 She asks me what did I think of my four days in New York. I call it a "dead city." She agrees vehemently, sight unseen. I criticize the people eating in the sidewalks. I didn't move here for the food, I tell her. She shrieks about the cult of the restaurant in America. I remember the time she drove my sister and me to Magic Mountain. We sat in the car with snacks in our laps, Peeled apples and pilfered honey from hotels, Famous Amos cookies from Costco, And a teddy bear in my sister's arms And a rabbit in mine. We drove through the desert all afternoon. She has no sense of direction, my mother. Four hours later we found ourselves in Hollywood Maybe even around the La Brea tar pits? Who's to say? Do you remember that, mama? On the phone with everyone besides my father who would've chewed her out Trying to fnd our way home By describing where we were To someone somewhere else.

When we traveled, my father would say, "Marina, what direction do you want to go in?" And she'd turn her head or shrug, And he'd say, "Just remember to go the opposite." But the Romans would walk right up to her, Wavy dark haired lady with big blue eyes who looks so good in red, And ask her something only a local would know, And she'd smile and nod. Everyone says I look like her when she was young And pale And sure.

22 I guess we'll always be mistaken For one another And mimic each other's accents When we speak the other's language Like strangers on trains in foreign countries Who slaughter every word with a sideways grin Hoping the natives project goodness on their conquerors And offer directions straight into the heart of the city. Seduction is the best mnemonic. Still. Tell me when will I stop writing about men? About my father? About Italy? About things I'm determined not to become? Tell me, mama. Now she's saying something about not mistaking kindness for weakness And the coyotes in California And tango lessons And I'm distressed looking at the miles left Compared to the miles driven In either direction

23 Estee Ellis- On Leaving Egypt

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