HAPPY PASSOVER and Shabbat Shalom to the BEBY NEXTgen Community!
I just want to send a quick email to wish everyone a Happy and Kosher Passover!
This year will be a very different experience for a lot of us: whether meeting for Zoom-seders or running our own seders for the first time, this Pesach experience is truly unique.
However, this might also be the closest to the original Pesach experience in Egypt - every family, in their own homes, and not going outside at all. Given that one of the ways we connect to Passover is to see ourselves as though we, personally, participated in the Exodus from Egypt (Yetziat Mitzrayim), we are more able to feel it than ever before.
Parents, there is only one mitzvah of the seder: "Vehigadeta L'Bincha - tell you children". Our one job is to teach our kids that we were slaves and that HaShem takes us out of Egypt. That's it. With love and simplicity.
We express that one point in three ways: Pesach, Matzah, and Maror. Pesach is about the korban Pesach - the sign of our freedom, and recalling that every Jewish family gathered together, and watched the final plague pass over their homes.
Matzah reminds us that when freedom happens, it happens quickly, over-night, in an instant. We don't know exactly what the future holds and what the freedom may look like, but we have faith that HaShem will free us at exactly the right time, in exactly the right way.
Maror reminds us that there is bitterness in life, but we only truly can appreciate our freedom when we understand that things are always so simple. It is a longing for freedom and sweetness (and for out mouths to stop burning) that truly exemplifies the Passover story.
Take a moment at your own seder, however and wherever it may be, and recognize how we, ourselves, in 2020 are living the Pesach story, and lets teach our kids and remind ourselves that ultimately, no matter the circumstance, HaShem grants us freedom.
We, both the shul, and also more personally, Shira Rachel and I, are here for you during this COVID-19 experience. This is true on Chag and Shabbat as any other day. If you need anything at all, please, do not hesitate to call.
