Weekly Message

April 19, 2024
12 Nisan 5784
PARAHAT MATZORA
Leviticus 14:1 - 15:33A

Dear Friends,

Passover is upon us and soon we will be sitting with friends and family. We find ourselves in a tenuous moment. Blindly going through the motions of the seder is certainly not good enough, but then again, ossified ritual has the capacity to lose why the ritual matters in the first place. We are engaged in a process of creating meaning. The Talmud teaches us that in order to have a Seder one need have only two people present. The task before us is to tell the story. And we are told that we must tell it in every generation. Yet in every generation the story is heard and processed according to the times in which we are living.

This year as we tell the story of liberation from slavery, the Haggadah has the capacity to remind us not only of the suffering of the Jewish people, but the suffering of those around us. We are not alone on the journey. We are reminded to welcome those who are hungry to come and eat. The entire seder is constructed so that we will feel an affinity for those who were and are enslaved. With all of the ritual prompts from the food on the seder plate to the matzoh to the celebratory meal, we are meant to experience the full journey from enslavement to freedom. The Seder invites us to feel many things at once, which, given the world in which we live in, is par for the course for so many of us.

Wishing you all a Passover of hope, love and a sense of wonder even in these most difficult of times.

Below is a poem I wrote to be read alongside the plagues (either before or after) as part of Seder Interrupted (a post October 7 Haggadah supplement).

Hardened Hearts
Rabbi Linda Shriner-Cahn

A field of hearts
Cracked open.
Hardened

Shards covering an open field.
Unrecognizable
Once beating, caring giving
Rage breaking them asunder.

Who did this?
Why?
Who will mend all of the brokenness?
The pain, the anguish

Pharoah's heart hardened,
His own will?
Maybe not
Blind to his people,
Wanting glory above all else
Refusing to lose
Winning at all costs

Until the abyss
The death of a child
Love and loss intertwined.

It feels like the abyss.
Is staring at us
In this very moment

Stepping back
Holding one another
Taking one step backward
Inch by painful inch

The hearts begin to soften.
And healing becomes an option.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Linda Shriner-Cahn