This year was not the year for Passover festivities. We are just too much in disarray after our move; we haven’t even set up the dining table. Not that it would have mattered; we have no dining chairs. (Yes, yes, we’re supposed to recline. We’re a little short on pillows and beanbags too. Not to mention much of the kitchen is still in boxes.)
It’s kind of a shame, because Passover seems particularly poignant this time around. Pesach is when Jews celebrate liberation from bondage in all of its forms: literal, mental, emotional, relational, vocational. We remember the going-out from Egypt (however apocryphal), and we think on the people who are still in bondage around the world. And we think about our own lives; where we’ve been, where we are, where we hope to be.
Every year at the end of the Seder we say “next year in Jerusalem!”, because for Jews Jerusalem is a universal synonym for “Home”. This year, if we had had a seder, it would have felt very different to say this than it has in years past. Because after many years I’m finally home, not in some provisional encampment.
I guess in a way this is my Jerusalem. This year on Pesach, I pray that everyone reading this finds their way to their own Jerusalem. Chag sameach!