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If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
We must raise interest and awareness of protecting the history of the Holocaust in order to protect the world. The Shoah Seder, which took place last Sunday, aims to do that.
You would think people would get excited about mass prophecy, but alas, there's no denying: Passover, the holiday of the Exodus, is way more popular than Shavuos, when we received the Torah. Why is it that we are more attracted to drama than to enlightenment? The solution is cheesecake.
Millennials, with their progressive political leanings, are voting alongside baby boomers, whose past experiences are leading them to question whether we should be following a different path with regard to marijuana.
This Wednesday, April 24, marks a little-known holiday on the Jewish calendar: Pesach Sheini -- Second Passover. Truth be told, it is a little different that the original holiday.
This is the time to sit with the anxiety, the ambiguity and the unknowability of our lives. This is the time to go down deep in to the deepest recesses of who we are, to find resources and riches we didn't know were there.
More than 100,000 Holocaust Survivors living today in the United States suffered the worst oppression and brutality in human history. Now, they are increasingly frail and debilitated, and many are living below the poverty line.
As we count each of the days of the sefira, we are meant to realign ourselves. The goal is to hold back what needs to be held back and push ourselves into those awkward uncomfortable places that ultimately make us into better people.
While I was operating in western Nepal I could bury myself in my work, pushing aside the desire to just finally come out and transition. One experience in Nepal exemplified my inner conflict and that was the Passover seder we created in Katmandu that year.
Will we view life as some sort of diminishing, increasingly limiting count down to the end, or will we see life as opening to an unending fount of opportunity, hope and joy? The Omer tradition, linking Passover to Shavuot, gives us the answer.
Like its counterparts of the synagogue and the halakha, the Passover meal observed today may not be so traditional. It is now steeped in a different tradition -- doctrine is out, and family is in.
We have made great idols of our ability to harness the resources of the earth, damming rivers, moving mountains and creating great structures that reach to the sky. While we have gained great benefits from our labor, it is time to now think of how to treat the earth with kindness.
The Festival of Passover just ended, not with a bang but a whimper. There was no big ritual, no loud family gathering, no singing, no telling the powerful story of our journey out of Egypt, Mitzrayim, the narrow place. Maybe that's because the journey doesn't really end.
Long story short, if I am doing my mothering job properly, my boy will some day come to recognize and appreciate the glory of Spring himself. He will know that life is universal and that its cyclical nature is confirmation of something to be celebrated.
Somewhere between the Nile turning to blood, and the hail storm, a terrible thought strikes me. What if it's not Moses who is supposed to inspire me? What if Pharaoh is the one I should identify with?
The Omer need not be a time of sadness. The time between Passover and Shavuout can itself be transformational and full of hope.
I have always found the section about the four children both compelling and off putting depending on the interpretation. I started to play with the idea a bit and turned it upside down.
