Celebrating and Commemorating

Why do we sit down to eat when the Jews had to run?

Is it ethical or slightly ironic to have a lamb shank to celebrate freedom?

Why are plagues simply represented by drops of wine?

Why are there tears if we are celebrating?

Out of the mouths of babes, as the saying goes, or in this instance from the students in the first year of their bnei mitzvah learning, we learn wisdom. Is the seder a commemoration or a celebration, especially this year? 

In the week marking a year since lockdown we have been reflecting and remembering those who died, what has been lost, but also what we have gained. Some gains have been appreciated and wonderful, but others are bitter gains like women’s continued and rising inequality and lack of safety both at home and on the streets. Or the sharing of stories in book clubs and work meetings of the varying degrees of abuse that all women and girls have experienced. The sad truth is that every girl and woman I know has a story to tell. 

Some of our younger members have rightly questioned whether we should be focusing on binary gender understandings, as in identifying only a male/female perspective, rather than talk about a spectrum of gender identity. The focus on women in the seder tradition is highlighting one continued struggle, and it does not mean that it overshadows another struggle, and so when we talk about men and women we can see it as an awareness of both those who are in the centre and those who are on the margins, and the need for recognising all.

It feels even more imperative this year to focus on the women in the Exodus narrative, and on those on the margins. Notice in your haggadot, in the text and in the images, how many women there are, if any? And then, use this handout to meet the courageous women who saved Moses, and without whom there would have been no Exodus. Tell the story seen through the eyes of Miriam, the midwives or Moses’ neglected wife Tzipporah. Add daughters or children to the four sons, discuss contemporary plagues, make your own four questions.

And the answers? Hopefully they will emerge from your discussions, but as the seder reminds us - it’s the questions that matter the most, right?

Shabbat Shalom and Gut Yontef