by Leeza Watstein Mota
And now, it is time, to tell our story,
We are charged to tell it as if we were living it.
And perhaps this year, we can identify with that experience
More vividly than ever before.
We all know this story —
The story of our Exodus from Egypt —
It begins —
Once upon a time …
”A wandering Aramaean was my father,
And he went down to Egypt,
And lived there as a stranger.
There he became a great nation.
Powerful,
And numerous as the stars of heaven!
Now, a new king arose over Egypt,
And this Pharoah,
And the native-Egyptians,
Treated us ill.
They afflicted us,
And imposed hard labor upon us.
Then, we cried to the Eternal One,
God of our ancestors!
And God heard our cry,
Saw our affliction,
Our misery,
Our oppression.
Then God brought us out of Egypt.
With a mighty hand,
And an outstretched arm,
With awesome power,
With Signs and Wonders.”
So here we find ourselves in the narrative right now —
Right at this very moment.
Huddled in our houses
Hoping to survive —
The Wonders.
Praying that the angel of death will pass over our house.
Spare our life,
Spare the lives of those we love.
Spare the lives of all we know.
Spare the lives of all peoples.
We cry out for redemption —
For the miracle cure,
For a vaccine to protect us from this horrific virus!!
To allow us to cross safely
Through this
Red Sea of weeds.
Clear on through
to the other side.
Out —
From the land of bondage
Forward —
Towards — the promised land.
The promised land of our dreams.
We are longing for the time that we will be free once more,
To dance in the streets,
To embrace one another.
To celebrate our good fortune,
To rejoice together, in-community at the Seder once more.
Free, free, free!
From this fear that binds us.
”When Pharaoh continued to refuse to liberate the children of Israel,
Moses and Aaron warned that God would punish him and his people with plagues.”
These are the
Ten Plagues
which the Holy One brought Upon the Egyptians:
(We will use a spoon to spill a drop of wine from our cups as we recite each plague together.)
Blood – dawm (drop)
Frogs – tz’far-day-a (drop)
Lice – kee-neem (drop)
Wild Beasts – aw-rov (drop)
Cattle Disease – de-ver (drop)
Boils – sh’cheen (drop)
Hail – baw-rawd (drop)
Locusts – ar-beh (drop)
Darkness – cho-shech (drop)
Death of the Firstborn – ma-kas b’cho-ros (drop)
When I was growing up, I would wonder what obstacle
(that I had read about from history)
Might interfere with me achieving my deepest dreams?
Would it be WAR —
Or DEPRESSION?
FACISM —
Or NATURAL DISASTER?
FAMINE —
Or DISEASE?
(One plague, two plague, red plague, blue plague.)
Little did I realize (in my profound innocence) that it would be all of these. That we would experience all of them in one lifetime. I always thought that there would be one dominant narrative?! I did not imagine that there would be hundreds of sub-plots, upon sub-plots. And we would be forced to reckon with achieving our potential despite it all,
in the midst of it all!?!
May you use this “sacred time of shelter” to assess carefully your dreams.
Your most sacred priorities.
Close your eyes, and make a wish for your life.
[Take a moment here.]
May God grant you courage
and discipline
to use this “sacred time” and “the privilege of shelter,”
to honor your most cherished wishes.
“Mitzrayim” — the Hebrew word for Egypt —
means narrow straits,
places of constriction.
The journey to freedom involves
Moving from the narrow place,
Out into the uncharted wilderness of the desert.
Uncertain,
Yet rich with possibilities.
Where are you in your journey?
Are you still enslaved in Egypt?
Or have you given yourself permission
To wander imaginatively, for a time?
Thank you for this – this is really good. I don’t know who the author is or if they live in Davis, as again the DV has no simple bio. Had a Zoom seder with extended family I usually am with. It was surprisingly much better than I thought it would be and am so glad we did it; I will not, going forward, take the ability to gather with family for granted. Being hams, we did an 11th drop of wine for the current plague – ‘covid’ we chanted.