Month: March 2026

I’ve been listening to a podcast on Jewish History Nerds about Albert Einstein and this got me thinking more about his theory of relativity. To be clear: I 100% do not fully understand any of the physics or the math behind any of it and I’m out of my league here. But I do like one of the hyper simplified explanations saying that everything is relative to the observer. One explanation I read stated “Einstein’s theory of relativity states that space and time are flexible, connected, and change based on how fast you are moving or how close you are to a strong gravity source”. (https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/what-relativity-einstein-s-mind-bending-theory-explained-ncna865496).

This understanding helps recognize that we don’t see the same things others see and that perspective is critical in how we see and experience the world. A person who’s color blind will not see the same sunset as a person of normal vision. People with varying levels of hearing will experience concerts differently. Depending on where you’re positioned in any experience, you’ll have one experience while someone else will have a variation of the same encounter. Hence the term “everything is relative”. I offer this explanation in preparing to tell the story of Passover, the story of the Exodus and our having been saved.

The world in which we live is broken. One need not look very far to see that all around us, near and far, people are living lives that don’t live up to their deepest hopes and dreams. All around the world, we see people living in abject poverty and suffering from both natural and man-made catastrophes. One could and should ask what has become of miracles like the 10 plagues, the splitting of the sea and the giving of the Torah.

We tell the story of the Exodus as if to say that “they all lived happily ever after…” In the eyes of the הגדה/Haggadah, it could appear that we left Egypt and became free and thus we were saved. The הגדה has many departures from this way of thinking, but nevertheless it seems puzzling to celebrate our historic redemption in a world that seems so unredeemed.

Another podcast I listened to this week was Ta Shma from Hadar, and in it Rabbi Shai Held spoke at length about this very subject. He referred to “the double edge of memory in תנ”ך/TaNaKh” in that “faith is damaged, or even dies, in the wake of experiences that seem to contradict it”. He was talking about how memory can serve as an inspiration, or as a mournful reminder. We can be inspired by the hope of what was, or pained by the reality of what is not any longer. I encourage you to listen to his talk at hadar.org/torah-tefillah/resources/why-doesnt-god-redeem-us-again-living-and-without-exodus#videos. When I listened, I was struck by how our world today is so broken and yet we still have hope. I was struck by how people can attend the same סדר/Seder and have totally different experiences (it’s all relative). One person can sit and tell and learn the story of our redemption and leave with hope in a future filled with redemption from all that ills us. Another person could leave feeling filled with sadness that our own world is not redeemable as it was in the past.

In many ways, this is something incredible about our סדר experience every year. We have the ability to be uplifted or the ability to be brought down and the choice will be ours. We can choose, as free people, to be filled with hope because of what once happened, or we can be filled with grief that the world is not yet redeemed. To know that we have choices, that we have free will, is something that liberates us rather than enslaves us. Choosing how to encounter our experience forces us to be active in our observance and religion rather than passive and unable to have a role. While our world feels so damaged, perhaps we can change to a perspective that is inspired by the possibility of redemption even in our own day. Perhaps we can have a perspective that celebrates that which was and that which CAN be. To live in a world of possibilities is to live in a world of freedom. We all have choices as to how we see our memories and how we will live our lives. Join me in choosing to live in a world that can be redeemed and inspired by the memory of the redemption of the past.

“Didn’t we just tell this story last year?” These words, or some like them, have probably been said by or to you about the holiday of פסח/Pesach/Passover and its beginning celebration – the סדר/Seder. Over generations, the Jewish people have successfully preserved this meaningful and beautiful ritual through the hard work of personalizing and innovating it. The words of the הגדה/Haggadah are very clear about the obligation to do this:

בְּכָל־דּוֹר וָדוֹר חַיָּב אָדָם לִרְאוֹת אֶת־עַצְמוֹ כְּאִלּוּ הוּא יָצָא מִמִּצְרַיִם.

“In each and every generation a person is required to see himself as if he went out from Egypt.” This text is from the משנה/Mishnah which was codified in the year 200CE. In fact, the basic skeleton of the סדר is written in the 10^th chapter of the section of the משנה about פסח. It’s common text many of us are familiar with and it’s shared in both Ashkenazi and Sephardi הגדהות/Haggadot/Haggadah. Rabbi Marc Angel’s, A Sephardic Passover Haggadah, uses this text. But there’s another tradition that’s observed in many Sephardi הגדהות as seen in the next text:

בְּכָל-דּוֹר וָדוֹר חַיָּב אָדָם לְהַרְאוֹת אֶת-עַצְמוֹ כְּאִלּוּ הוּא יָצָא מִמִּצְרַיִם.

“In each and every generation a person is required to show himself as if he went out from Egypt”. One little letter, in one of the words, changes the entire message from seeing oneself to showing oneself. The implication is we’re commanded to show other people and teach other people that we were slaves. This text presses us to lean into the importance of educating other people around us and not to just teach ourselves. This variant of the text comes from the רמב”ם/Rambam’s work. In theמשנה תורה/Mishneh Torah, he stated the following:

בְּכָל דּוֹר וָדוֹר חַיָּב אָדָם לְהַרְאוֹת אֶת עַצְמוֹ כְּאִלּוּ הוּא בְּעַצְמוֹ יָצָא עַתָּה מִשִּׁעְבּוּד מִצְרַיִם (משנה תורה הלכות חמץ ומצה ז:ו)

“In each and every generation a person is required to show himself as if he, himself, went out now from the enslavement of Egypt.”

His words are much more in depth than either of the other texts and are more instructive. We’re required to show others that the story continues even now and that we’re all still leaving the Egyptian enslavement in our own time. To understand we’re each still leaving enslavement forces us to be more active in the liberation of ourselves and those around us.

The difference between seeing ourselves as slaves, and showing others we’re slaves, tells us two very different essential messages to be conveyed during the holiday. We’re required to experience the liberation ourselves, and we’re required to see that we’re a part of the continuing story. At the same time, it will never be enough for the Jewish people to see themselves, individually, as having lived this story… we must help others find their part of this story and teach them they’re also a continuing link in this generational chain.

In the הגדה we use, A Different Night by the Shalom Hartmann Institute, this page is illustrated by showing the generations of oppression to which our people have been subjected to over history. Last week we were reminded that oppression is not history but still a current event. The violent terrorist attack on Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan, was a stark reminder that we’re in this together and no matter where or when a Jew is found, they must see themselves as being part of our people and our history. We continue to look forward to the light of a world without hatred and animosity. Waiting will take longer than any of us expected to, but we know that someday it will come. On that day, we might be able to change the text again to reflect that slavery is something to be seen only as ancient history.

This Shabbat, we’ll conclude the book of Shmot (Exodus) as we read the last double-parsha “Vayakhel-Pikudei”. This Shabbat is also called Shabbat Hahodesh – the Shabbat where we announce the upcoming new month – Rosh Hodesh Nissan – which will be on Thursday. This means Spring is near, and Passover is coming!

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks asked, “What is the difference between a free human being and a slave? We tend to think it has to do with labor, toil, and effort. A slave works hard. A free person doesn’t. But in reality, some free people work very hard indeed, especially those who enjoy their work. The real difference lies in who has control over time. A free person works long hours, because at some stage, he or she has chosen to. A slave has no choice, no control over time. That’s why fixing a calendar was the first command given to the Israelites [Ex. 12:1-2]. It was as if God was saying to them: ‘if you are to be free, the first thing you must learn to master is time’”.

We take control and responsibility for our own time through Jewish communal memory and ritual. We always look back to our story of Exodus – every day, every Shabbat and every holiday. This Shabbat, we’re called to look closer at the narrative of our own identity, to the origin story of our people. We were slaves in Egypt, we were freed, brought to Mt. Sinai, given the Torah, and instructed to build up this world so God can be a part of our lives. This summary of the Book of Exodus paints freedom in a new light. Freedom begins with the memory of not being free and includes the physical emancipation where we are free from our oppressors. Had Exodus ended here, we would have been free from Egypt (Dayeinu!), but we would not know what to do with our freedom.

The Jewish concept of freedom goes further. The Torah claims that one can only be free within the confines of civilized law – within a society and a world governed by justice, righteousness, truth, accountability and responsibility. The receiving of the Torah at Mount Sinai is part of our journey of freedom, the part that tells us what to do with our freedom and newfound privilege. The book of Exodus doesn’t end until the Israelites complete the building of the Mishkan, the tabernacle – an elaborate physical tent-like structure which is meant to be the ‘house’ of God in this physical world.

May we all be blessed to take part in building holy projects. May we succeed in our shared endeavors of making and engaging with communal physical spaces in our lives that promote the presence of God and the values by which we live.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”. (A Tale of Two Cities) These words that open one of the greatest books ever written, paint the portrait of a world that is two things at one time. It paints a world where, depending on one’s perspective, everything was the best or the worst.

These words also invite us, the readers, to embrace a world that can be two things at once. As Jews today, we’re abundantly aware that we’re living in the best and the worst of times. We live in a time when we know Jewish sovereignty renewed. We live in a time when we can defend ourselves and not rely on other people to help us. We live in a time where all that we prayed for over the millennia has been realized. And yet we live in a time where we are not free from hate. We live in a time where we are not free from terror. We live in a time where we are forced to hide and forced to wonder if this will all be okay in the end. That is what it means to be Jewish in 2026.

We’ve overcome the Inquisition and the expulsions and the Holocaust only to live in the world of October 7^th. We’ve overcome all of that only to be subjected to the vicious threats and real terror by a regime hellbent on our destruction. To be Jewish today is to recognize that two truths live side by side; sometimes antagonizing one another, sometimes at peace and sometimes in a cold peace. Take war for instance: war is not good and it’s not happy, but it can be and is necessary at times, “A time for loving and a time for hating. A time for war and a time for peace”. (Ecclesiastes 3:8 /קהלת ג:ח) That’s where we find ourselves now. Nobody should be happy we’re at war, but we can and do recognize we need to be at war. Nobody should rejoice at the downfall of our enemy, “If your enemies fall, do not exult” (Proverbs 24:17 / משלי כד:יז), but we can and should breathe a sigh of relief that we don’t need to worry about their hatred or violence as much as we did. The Jewish people are a people of peace, but we’re also a people who are committed to live and to assure our continued living into the future. We’ll work for peace while assuring our own longevity. That’s the dichotomy of this war and of all wars we fight. We didn’t choose to start this war. It was forced onto us by Iran and its proxies, so we continue to fight this war.

This week we’ll learn of other dichotomies when we read פרשת כי תשא/Parshat Ki Tisa. It will also be שבת פרה/Shabbat Parah. In כי תשא we learn about the עגל הזהב/Egel HaZahav/The Golden Calf. This act of betrayal is something our people have lived with through the ages. We see the gold and the cow as being something of a legacy. An example of this is that on ראש השנה/Rosh Hashana we’re forbidden to use the horn from a bull because it would remind God of this sin. In (Numbers 19 / במדבר יט) we learn about the פרה אדמה/Parah Adooma/Red Heifer and how it was to be used to cleanse a כהן/Kohen who was made impure by having come in contact with death. The cow of the עגל הזהב and the cow of the פרה אדמה are both cows with very different affects and effects on and for the Jewish people. One recalls a sin and one provides a path to becoming pure again. One took away and one brought back. Both are cows and yet they’re each distinct for how they’re seen and what they did.

We live in the worst of times and the best of times. There’s no way to not feel the weight of that statement right now. The trick is for us to reread this statement with a bit of a twist. It’s the best of times in spite of being the worst of times. We live in times that are tough and we’re surrounded by so much hardship and adversity, yet we have many blessings and the power to shape our own future and our own world view. It’s the best of times no matter how bad today might be.