Greens in Salt Water: Our Second Covid Passover

הָשַּׁתָּא עַבְדֵי, לְשָׁנָה הַבָּאָה בְּנֵי חוֹרִין
This year we are slaves. Next year we will be free people.  —Passover Haggadah

 
Last year at this time, we were all adapting to what it meant to conduct a seder via Zoom, physically distant from our loved ones. And, to some degree or another, we made the adjustments. Even if those seders weren’t the greatest of our entire lives, most people agreed that technology made it 70%, or 43%, or 29% successful. 

At that time, we figured that this was a temporary gesture. Within a few weeks (remember?), we said to ourselves, this will all be over, and we’ll remember how strange and different the Seder of 2020 was. Surely we’ll be “free” by summer.

Now we’re preparing for our second Pandemic Seder. Almost 540,000 Americans have died from Covid, let alone the victims all over the world. We’ve learned how to adjust our behaviors, adapt our daily rituals, and act responsibly for our own sake and the sake of others. (Well, most of us—except for the most obtuse and irresponsible among us—have learned how to do so.)

This year’s Pandemic Seder will feel different. The availability of vaccines has made it possible for some people to be with each other; we don’t live in mortal terror for our parents, grandparents, and the elders of our community quite so much. There is a feeling that even if we are having socially-distanced seders now, there is hope on the horizon that we’ll be liberated from these narrow, confining spaces very soon.  And that hope, it seems to me, is very “Kosher for Passover.”

Early in the seder, we observe a ritual involving two symbols. We take up a green vegetable—“Karpas”— a symbol of springtime’s renewal. A Hasidic commentary reminds us that Pesach is also Chag Ha-Aviv, the Festival of Springtime, and after a long, cold winter, the world is slowly renewing its warmth and vitality. Even though we have just passed through winter, this holiday endows us with renewed energy for Life.[1]

We take the Karpas and dip it into a dish of salt water, which symbolizes the tears of suffering.

Each symbol thus has a distinct meaning—but what does it mean to dip one of these symbols into the other?

It means that our lives are almost never entirely joy or entirely sorrow. Real life is a mixture of those two elements, one dipped in the other. Our celebrations include a reflection of those who are no longer with us. By contrast, our bereavements are tempered by sweet memories and love that endures.

Dipping the Karpas into the salt water is a timely and powerful ritual. Because this year, as much as ever, we know the symbolism of hope mixed with tears. As our world opens up, it is crucial that we do not lose sight of the fact that there has been so much death and sorrow all around us for these many months; social distancing hasn’t just been about inconveniencing ourselves, it’s been about minimizing the danger to ourselves and others. So much loss is contained in the seder’s salty waters.

But in that loss there is hope. The green vegetable promises us that we’ll emerge and from this and new life will blossom—soon. The winter has passed. The vaccines are here; they’ll be available to everyone in the near future. Soon we’ll be out of this, if we can just hold on a bit longer. And when we emerge, our freedoms should be to us sweeter than ever; our relationships should be even more precious; and our empathy to those who hurt should be so much deeper.

From our pains, we learn the preciousness of life. Passover promises liberation from all forms of enslavement. Its hope, as ever, is born from salty tears.

[1] In The Chassidic Haggadah, Rabbi Eliyahu Touger, 1988.

One Year's Passing Since "That Day"

.וְכָל הֵיכָא דְּאָמְרִינַן ״בּוֹ בַּיּוֹם״, הַהוּא יוֹמָא הֲוָה
Anywhere in the text where we simply say “That Day”—it’s referring to that day.
(Talmud, Berachot 28a)

March 10 is an auspicious and melancholy anniversary. It’s the date in my mind when everything changed for us.

It was on March 10, 2020—it was the afternoon of Purim in the Jewish calendar—and I was sitting with a group of students, planning an upcoming Holocaust-education program for our community.  It was late afternoon, and of course we were all aware of the encroaching pandemic and the murmuring that college campuses were closing down. And then it happened:  we all received the email simultaneously from the university President that informed us that Babson was shutting down, too.

Remember how young and innocent we all were back then? The initial outreach from the school encouraged students to take all their stuff with them when they left campus in a few days; it was Spring Break. The hope was that we would all be able to return in two or three weeks. Certainly, we figured, we would be back by Passover. Okay, by May 1. Okay… by graduation?  And everything kept getting pushed back by a week, then a month, and so on…

None of us imagined then that we’d be marking the one-year anniversary of staying-at-home, social distancing, and Zoom fatigue. Let alone well over a half-million Americans dead, due in no small part to the incompetent machinations of a self-serving federal government.

But here we are. And while some have told me that it’s “depressing” to mark such an anniversary, it is not my intention to be a downer. While I yearn for the physical presence of my friends and family as much as anyone, I draw inspiration from the remarkable resilience that I’ve seen from many people.

The role of technology in our lives has been incredibly valuable; just imagine the strain of staying at home if it were just a few years ago, before videoconferencing technology was as smooth and effective as it is now. For me, personally, this has been especially true. I had cochlear implant surgery in August 2019, and can actually hear with 90% clarity for the first time in many years. If the pandemic had struck just two years ago, I would have been rather hopeless in all of my Zoom classes, meetings, and interactions. I would have been much more isolated. I would have been in terrible trouble.

The anniversary is a useful time to reflect on “that day” – the moment when everything changed in our lives, and all of our responses and behaviors seem to be re-oriented around those changes.

The Talmud has a “that day”—it was the moment of a political shakeup that occurred among the Tanna’im in the 2nd century, when Rabban Gamliel was deposed (temporarily, it turns out) from community leadership and the entire structure of the Academy was democratized. On “that day,” new books were written, new rules were put into place, and new leadership (Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah) was installed.

But if a moment in Israel 1800 years ago is too esoteric, consider that each of us has a “that day” as well, depending on what generation we belong to:

The JFK assassination, of course. The murder of Yitzhak Rabin. 9/11, G-d knows. A diagnosis, a car accident…

And probably good things as well: weddings; births; b’nai mitzvah, certainly.  New jobs, new loves, moving to a new home…

Days when everything changed, for better or for worse.

Someday soon, G-d willing, these newly acquired Covid-behaviors will recede. We’ll be in the company of friends and even strangers again. The masks will come down, or at least loosen up. We’ll hug our distant family members. We’ll travel without reservation. There will no longer be daily Corona tolls in the media.

And when that happens, I hope we’ll remember the lessons that we’ve learned since “That Day.” Lessons about caring for the most vulnerable among us; about using technology for good; about how precious it is to be in the presence of people we care about. If it’s true that “everything will be different,” let’s pray that those differences will be to make us better, and that they will be for blessings.

Do you have a “That Day” in your life? You’re invited to tell us about it in the comments section below.