Friends,

As you would readily agree, this Pesach will be different from any Pesach in recent memory. I offer these guidelines in the hope that we will successfully adjust to the challenges presented this year by the COVID-19 crisis. As I wrote last week, my hope is that we will deal with the constraints/ meitzarim of this year and will enjoy an expansive Pesach celebration in the years to come.

Pesach is our festival of freedom, our holiday of national memory and our cherished moment of gathering with family and friends to reenact our people's transition from enslavement to liberation. While this year we cannot reenact on a large stage with many participants, we can celebrate our personal and national freedom in an intimate setting and revisit God's loving deliverance of our ancestors in each generation of our history. In significant ways our mindset this Pesach must be different. In important other ways we can retain the meaning and beauty of the holiday. My comments that follow attempt to identify some of the ways in which we must adjust this year. They also highlight some of the aspects of the holiday that remain intact.

"All chametz in my possession, whether I have seen it or not, is hereby nullified and ownerless as the dust of the earth."
We can rely on that formula to nullify any and all chametz.

After you complete your study April 8, you might want to read the text that we usually read as a community. 

 
May it be your will, God, our God and God of our ancestors, that your Torah be our occupation in this world, and will remain with us in the world to come. Hanina bar Papa, Rami bar Papa, Nahman bar Papa, Ahdai bar Papa, Abba Mari bar Papa, Rafram bar Papa, Rakhish bar Papa, Surhav bar Papa, Ada bar Papa, Daru bar Papa.
May the words of Torah, Lord our God, be sweet in our mouths and in the mouths of all your people so that we, our children, and all the children of the House of Israel, may come to love You and want to study Your Torah on its own merit. Though your commandments, I am wiser than my enemies for they are ever with me. May my heart be filled with your laws in order that I not despair. May I never forget your laws, for by them I am kept alive. Blessed are you God, who teaches me your laws. Amen, Amen, Amen, Selah, Forever.
We are thankful before you God, our God and God ofour ancestors that you have made our portion from among those who sit in the house of study and you have not made our portion from among those who sit idle. For we wake early and they wake early. We wake early for words of torah and they wake early for idle words. We strive and they strive. We strive and receive reward and they strive and do not receive reward. We race and they race. We race towards the afterworld and they race towardsdestruction as it says: "And you God will bring them down to destruction, men of blood and deceit will not live out half their lives and I will trust You.
May it be your will, God, my God, that as you have helped me finish masekhet/seder ________, thus will you help me begin other masekhtot and books and finish them. To learn and to teach, to protect and fulfill all the words of your Torah with love. May the merit of all the Tanaim and Amoraim and scholars stand with me and for my progeny so that the Torah does not leave my mouth and the mouths of my descendants forever. And may itbe filled through me: "when you walk it will guide you, when youlie down it will protect you, and when you wake, it will converse with you. For in me (Torah) your days will increase and years of life will be added for you. Length of days is in her right hand and in her left, wealth and honor. God will give strength, God will bless God's nation with peace.

Then enjoy your final pre- Pesach meal.

The sign of spring, karpas, can be any vegetable. Many people here and in Israel use a boiled potato.

If we cannot obtain horseradish as the symbol of bitterness we can use romaine lettuce. We use it because its initial taste is sweet like the initial years of the Israelites in Egypt. Only after a few seconds does it taste bitter. Only after a new Pharaoh assumed the throne in Egypt did our ancestors' lives in Egypt become embittered.

A roasted beet can serve in place of a shankbone.

I hope that we can all add the charoset, egg and salt water to the seder plate. Please contact me if you have questions about these items.

Please keep in mind that pure, i.e. unprocessed products purchased before Passover are acceptable for use during the festival. These products include milk, fruits and vegetables.

Whether we have hosted s'darim in the past or not, this year we should prepare simply. Perhaps small quantities of new utensils and plates will be sufficient if we do not have special utensils for Pesach.

Pesach and add new layers of meaning to the seder. For example, in our confinement shouldn't we appreciate Eliyahu's virtual journey from home to home? When we enumerate the plagues that befell Egypt, should we not think of the plague of isolation that we all confront this year?

I readily admit that the most poignant Jewish expression of loneliness might be a seder for one. If you are in that situation this year, I urge you to search your memory to recall earlier Pesach experiences. In addition, posing and answering the many questions of this different night might be a path to new meaning. We can all focus on Rabban Gamliel's three central symbols, the Passover offering, the matzah and bitter herbs, and explain to ourselves how these symbols suggest the movement from enslavement to Pharaoh ( maror) to the bread of affliction and hope ( matzah) to serving God (the Passover offering).

I hope to share with you several comments dealing with the text of the Haggadah to enrich your seder experiences. In advance of those comments, I suggest that we think creatively about the " ha lachma anya/all who are hungry" passage. We cannot open our doors to them this year. We can contact food banks and homeless shelters before Passover asking if we can donate food to the hungry. We can also commit to contribute our time and resources after Passover to local organizations that support the needy. If you want to submit comments on the text of the haggadah or on your ideas for this Pesach, please send them to me. I will then try to share them with our community.

Finally, I want to remind you of a Biblical second chance that might become important for us this year. In the book of Numbers, Israelites acknowledge to Moses that they missed Passover. They ask Moses about an opportunity to observe Pesach later. The answer they receive is that under certain conditions they can observe Pesach one month later. Perhaps this year, when we are liberated from the constraints of COVID-19, we can all gather with family and friends to observe a second chance Passover. I would welcome the challenge to develop a new haggadah for that moment. In the meantime, my best wishes for a joyous [if different] Pesach holiday.

Rabbi Lyle A. Fishman
Ohr Kodesh Congregation
8300 Meadowbrook Lane
Chevy Chase, MD. 20815
ravlaf@ohrkodesh.org
301 589 3880 x221