What do a wedding, a baby naming and a Jewish conversion ceremony at the mikvah have in common?
Well, I participated in one of each of them over a period of 48 hours this past week. All were incredibly gratifying. And all took place remotely -- which was neither strange nor even remarkable.
It is that normality that I want to talk about for a moment.
There’s been a lot of talk about a “new normal” that we’re all looking forward to -- which will begin, God willing, when the pandemic is finally behind us.
Well, many months ago, we entered a state that was different from the old normal, yet wasn’t at all like the new normal we were all anticipating. Over time, this state has begun to feel routine. It’s no longer remarkable.
Just last Friday evening, we celebrated the many births that have taken place in our community over the past year. How? On Zoom. On the eighth day of Pesach, we’ll commemorate the many losses we’ve experienced. How? On Zoom.
We’re getting through this, and we’ll continue to get through this.
This is intrinsic to Judaism. We Jews have a past. We also have aspirations—hopes and dreams—for the future. But we live in the present.
One of my favorite stories from the Talmud is about the great Jewish sage, Yochanan ben Zakkai: He once said: Let’s say that you’re holding a sapling in your hand which you are about to plant, and someone comes up to you and says, “The Messiah has come, let’s go greet him!” What should you do?
The answer is, “First finish planting the sapling, then greet the Messiah.”
Yes, it’s important to greet the Messiah: it’s important to have dreams and aspirations. But first plant the sapling.
Similarly, there’s the story (told in the Talmud on Shabbat 31a) about Hillel: A person once came up to him and said, "Teach me the whole Torah while I stand on one foot!!!" That’s a tall order. Hillel could have responded, as Shammai had, by saying: "I can’t do it. There’s too much in the Torah to review while someone is standing on one foot."
But instead, Hillel rises to the occasion, and he says: “What is hateful to you, don’t do to your neighbor. That’s the entire Torah; all the rest is commentary.”
But that’s not all he says. He concludes by saying, “Now, go and learn!”
In both cases, our sages focus on the near term and the long term simultaneously. They don’t sacrifice either for the sake of the other.
That’s what motivated the rabbis to create the seder as we know it today. When the Jerusalem Temple was destroyed in the year 70, the rabbis could have said, “Let’s hold off. We can’t sacrifice the paschal lamb the way we used to. The Temple will eventually be rebuilt. Let's wait until then, and then we will pick up where we left off.”
Had the rabbis done that, we would not have been celebrating Passover at all for the past 2,000 years. The rabbis realized that we, the Jewish People, needed Passover. It wouldn't have been appropriate to wait ten or a hundred, much less a thousand years. We needed to celebrate Passover that very next year! And if we couldn’t do it in the old way, we just had to figure out a new way to celebrate it.
The rabbis were adventurous. Bold. Gutsy.
We too have to be bold and gutsy as well.
Once again, this Passover, we’ll do what we can. Many of our seders will be quite small. Many of us will connect with loved ones only via Zoom—or perhaps by sitting outside in socially-distanced circles.
But we will celebrate Passover. We’ll reaffirm the importance of human freedom, and we’ll reaffirm our commitment to pursue it.
I want to wish everyone a very happy Passover. I hope that, notwithstanding the challenges of gathering in person, we will be inspired by the spirit of Passover, and that our observance, however different it will be from the old normal, will sustain us until the next time we gather -- which will, hopefully, be "in Jerusalem" – or at least closer to it than we are now.
Hag Sameach!
Sincerely,
Rabbi Carl M. Perkins
P.S. If you're reading this prior to Sunday evening at 6:00pm, it's not too late to join our community "Zeder" jointly sponsored by Temple Aliyah and Temple Emunah in Lexington. Simply click on this link, which will bring you to a registration page, and from there you'll easily find your way into the festivities. B'ruchim Ha-Ba'im -- Welcome aboard!
