PASSOVER EDITION 5781 SECTION C PAGE 23
The one year anniversary of COVID colliding into our lives has been haunting. Future generations will not deal with what we’ve dealt with. Whatever variant or even, G-d forbid, new pandemic strikes, it will be, even if only psychologically, on the continuum of COVID. The origin story of this new age of pandemics will forever be COVID-19.
There have been so many moments of “this time last year . . . ” — the stocking up for quarantine groceries, the lockdown, the first death, the horror of the 10th death that quickly followed, the panic sown throughout this city, the constant cutting-through-the-air sirens — more than anything, the manifestation of how much changed so fast: Pesach in isolation, in lockdown.
That Pesach stands out as a metric for how different our lives had become. From a night marked by families gathering around tables laden with song, memory, family and food, to — poof! — isolation.
For those of us who survived last year, reaching another Pesach, once again gathering indoors with family, friends or loved ones — without fear — fills me with a sense of awe and gratitude. The heart pinches and cries for those for whom this Pesach will tragically be a different kind of anniversary — of breavement.
It is still astonishing to think how last year a tiny invisible particle brought down our entire modern world, closing down countries, shutting down borders, highlighting our sense of helplessness and finitude. We came down from the mountain of technology and the bustling global highways. Humbling indeed. As clear as day, it is G-d Who is the source of all of nature and life.
I had only one guest at my seder last year. He was invisible. No, it was not my imaginary friend, although one could argue that perhaps that is precisely who it was. I mean, Eliyahu HaNavi, Elijah the Prophet, my one invisible guest, due to the invisible COVID that had ruptured our world.
Come what may, you can always count on Eliyahu to come. Even in a pandemic. He was the one guest allowed to enter our homes. His invisible presence was invoked and invited along many other invisible guests that sat with me around my table.
I saw my ancestors. I saw my beloved grandparents and cherished friends, now gone. They were there, unseen yet seen. Invisible to the naked eye, but crystal clear to the mind’s eye and heart.
Pesach is a time of abbreviated processes, when exiles are ruptured or terminated, whether earned or not. Pesach, the word itself, means “skip.” G-d skipped over the homes of the Israelites whose lintels were painted with blood. G-d skipped over the sentence of the Israelites in slavery, commuting it.
Rashi says that when the root of the word “pesach” is invoked, it is an invoking of compassion. To skip over processes, to interrupt and abbreviate them straight to redemption, warranted or not, earned or unearned, this is compassion.
The word “seder,” on the other hand, stands for order. In contrast to pesach, seder is the orderliness in our remembering this quick, mobile, accelerated and unexpected event. In seder there are sequential steps to follow: Kadesh, urchatz, karpas, yachatz . . . it is as though there is a dialectical tension in making order out of the memory of chaos, of creating order in the skipping that induced the unexpected redemption.
This quality of skipping is also present in The Song of Songs, which is customarily read on Passover. A synonym for skipping characterizes the dialogue in The Song of Songs. We read about the skipping and leaping of the lovers. There are no gradual processes, just sudden comings and goings, leaping toward one another.
When you leap, you look away, look away from what dangers might lurk, look away from what a justified response might be. You look away from what might be holding you back; you just look away. Your compassion takes over. So it was in releasing the Israelites from bondage. A breaking point was reached, where reason and rationality were discarded, in favor of the immediacy of compassion.
Hence, the night of the Pesach seder is a night of skipping over what could have delayed the redemption,a night of knowing there are moments that strike, moments of unconditional protection, safety, compassion and release. Leil shimurim, a night of watching.
Last year, we were all closed off, siloed in our lives. Elijah was the sole guest who entered our homes.
This year, when we sit down to create the seder, the order out of the memories of moments, the memories of a redemption that skipped over so much to end an exile and inaugurate our origin story as a people, we also remember the invisible COVID that punctured our lives in an instant.
Both disaster or redemption can be moments that appear or disappear out of nowhere, catalysts for unfolding processes to come.
We pray these catalysts shall always be hopeful, for blessings, for unfolding processes of redemption.
Ultimately, this is the role of Elijah the Prophet, to be the mevaser ha-geulah, the herald of redemption.
Last year, I understood and felt the value of Elijah, this long known yet mysterious guest I had welcomed every year since girlhood, in a new and different way.
I pray we are all blessed to be surrounded by flesh and blood loved ones always, intimately at our sides.
But no matter what, there can always be those invisible guests, those Elijahs in our lives who, no matter where life takes us, are indeed present, there with us when we open the door to meet them under the lintel.
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