Redemption in our days

Growing up in a Jewish day school setting, I never wondered what it would be like to be away from my family for Passover, let alone to not have school off for the entire week. And yet, there I was, a few days before the holiday, cleaning out my dorm kitchen of any bread products and the like deemed unfit for use during the holiday. I wondered how lonely I would feel away from home on a holiday that represents unity unlike any other.

Passover represents a powerful moment in Jewish history—our exodus from Egypt to Canaan, our redemption from slavery to freedom. It is a holiday that binds us as a people, not only religiously, but historically and emotionally as well. “This is the bread of affliction,” we recite, holding up our matzo, a piece of unleavened bread, and we remember the bread that the Israelites had no time to bake as they were fleeing Pharaoh and his army. We recall our pain at the hands of the Egyptian taskmasters, the evil decrees passed against us, the plagues that were wrought upon our enemies, and our miraculous redemption. “A man must look at himself as if he left Egypt,” we recite.

In 21st century America, it is very difficult to see ourselves as if we had just been freed from slavery. Although many among us do share impressive stories of emigration from oppressive environments, for most of us, the Exodus is far from imaginable. This holiday therefore calls forth more than just those distant memories. It also reminds us of the sufferings that the Jewish people endured and continue to endure in every generation. Most likely, our sages established such a long and intensive Passover Seder dinner on the first nights of Passover for that very reason­—to force us to tell the story of our people in a unique way that helps us engage personally with the history and that connects us all together.

There is something very powerful about this service, as more Jews commemorate Passover than any other holiday in the Jewish calendar by participating in a Seder of some kind. I have always spent my Seder with my extended family and celebrated the holiday with Jews of all observance levels. Since, unlike my ancestors, I was not liberated by a Great Power from my classes, I decided to stick around and celebrate the holiday here in Manhattan. Thankfully, my professors have been more than accommodating in moving their assignments so that they do not fall on the four festival days when no work at all is allowed. (If nothing else, at least I was granted this freedom.)

I was happy to find out that the Columbia/Barnard Hillel offered a free Seder on the first night, and I also received an invitation elsewhere on the second night. Since Passover is truly about sharing memories and relating to our common past millennia ago, I knew it would not matter exactly who surrounded me at these tables. Some at the Hillel Seder celebrated the holiday for the first time, and others have never been away from their friends and family during this holiday. We shared the lengthy story of our people before our meal, we shared our customs and personal histories, and we knew with certainty that we would joyously practice this tradition for years to come. Even those of other faiths joined us to learn about and commemorate this festival of freedom. It’s a holiday of celebration, of remembrance, of a table filled with lavish foods and good company (along with some of that inevitable not-so-good food and company), and it’s a holiday in which we share our own stories and make new ones.

As throughout the year, on Passover we pray and hope that such cruelty and barbarity will never happen again, neither to us nor to any other citizen of the world. After all, we collectively understand what it is to suffer under oppression. On such a politically active and rights-minded campus like Columbia, I often note my own extra sensitivity instilled by the message of Passover. I look to Darfur and to all of the places of suffering, hunger, and strife, and know that they too need redemption, they too need a helping hand. We must reach out, learn to treat others with kindness, respect the strangers in our midst, and hope that we can bring peace to the world and its inhabitants. For that is the ultimate message of the holiday of Passover. I hope that this holiday will continue to inspire for generations to come as it has for generations in the past, and that you enjoy these last few hours of redemption this year, reflecting on your own freedom to celebrate and your privilege to be free in this great land.

The author is a student in List College and the School of General Studies.