Why do we tell this story? Really, why do we tell any story? Why is it important to remember? Could there be some connection between what is happening here, right now and what is happening in other places in the world and other times in history?Why are we asking and why are we afraid to ask?
I am looking at the time line of my life, thinking of the journey I have taken, the journey my parents took, and my grandparents took. I am looking all the way back and all around me, at all the journeys that make up the America where I live.
If it is true that there is a Pharaoh not only in every age, and in every state, but in every self, if it is true that there are slaves now and oppressors as there were then, if it is true our freedom is a goal but without vision we do not even remember, then we need to hear the stories.
In front of me, on the table, are a question mark and a string. I have my own string and a string that links everyone at the table together. In this Seder everything has meaning,
Naomi Klein in The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism writes:
If economic crisis hits and it is severe enough- a currency meltdown, a marked crash, a major recession- it blows everything else out of the water and leaders are liberated to do whatever is necessary(or said to be necessary) in the name of responding to a national emergency. Crises are, in a way, democracy-free zones-gaps in politics as usual when the need for consent and consensus do not seem to apply.
In my life’s time line there are stories that include shock and fear. There are times of silence and forgetting. Times of complacency. Even now, as I write these words and ask these questions, I am afraid. Because the unthinkable happens. The meltdown Naomi Klein writes about may be happening right here in America. And we don’t even know that we need to get going.
At this table we are talking about the journey we must take to freedom. It is not a journey we can take alone, yet it is a journey we must take alone as a journey of conscience. Where our past meets our present so we can move into our future. Where memory and imagination are the sources of our redemption.
The journey to freedom is not the journey that leaves behind a trail of trash. It is not the freedom to do whatever we want to the earth and to each other. Not the freedom of greed and an the unbridled market We are talking about the freedom to live without fear of thinking, feeling, caring, questioning. The freedom to take responsibility, to build bridges, to work for a better world, a green world, a healed world. To live in peace and prosperity where dreams guide us.
At this table the parsley is dipped into salt water as our hope is dipped into our tears. The pain we did not even know was there, the pain of those around us, breaks open. As the world is broken, as the matzah is broken, our hearts are broken and hunger fills us. Meaning fills us. And the changed world begins. A world where we do not inflict this pain of what happened to us onto others. Where we know that we are all connected to the same thread.
My lifeline is filled with stories about religion and the politics, poverty and wealth, hatred and love, fear of being found out and the courage to use my voice. It is filled with rituals that guide me to strength and hope.
Here is another story I want to share:
I have just come back from a visit to the Sonoran desert of Tucson, a visit with my best friend from high school, daughter of industrials who never knew the Great Depression. We remember each other’s past, our years of communal living, the struggles, the trip we first took together across the country. The help we found along the way.
Together we stand in the center of a labyrinth she is making in the sand, where nature is everywhere a force to be treated with reverence. Where water, earth, air, sun remind us of the challenge of the journey and its blessings.
On the other side of the mountains, in the shadows, there are many still trying to get here to this land that has meant their chance for a better life. They are hiding along with the drug smugglers and the weapon dealers. While we stand here, for a moment in sacred time, in the center of the labyrinth, with our memories, our imagination, and the path that brought us together in this 54th spring of our lives, in the first pure light of the sun’s beginning, with the awakening song of the birds, with the vision of the eagles, with the renewal of the serpents.
For this moment in time we have a chance to integrate our past with our present and our future, to imagine a world of peace for all the inhabitants of this earth we share. To seek the strength and healing we need to make this happen. To bless force of the universe that created all of this, that we could be witness to it. And to bless our journey of aging wisdom and our question as creators in this creation:
What is our responsibility now?
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