By Rabbi Ben Kamin
SAN DIEGO — Passover is the best gift we ever gave to the world; nobody who was ever a human being could turn down its message of freedom, its transformation of the taste of tears into the wine of hope, its view of the leaves of parsley as the springtime of redemption.
It whispers to you, this Passover, as the winter is receding, and you are cleaning out the drawers of your household and the chambers of your soul. It beckons to you at the Seder table with the lyrics of your ancestors. It calls to you from the troubled, ancient shores of the Nile, and it has been heard about in our time along the Rhine and the Mississippi and so many other rivers of hate.
It awakens you with the symphonies of benevolence that have played—from a single set of Egyptian bulrushes, where baby Moses hid, to the learning academies of Babylon to the teaching tents of Africa to the spiritual pagodas of China to the caring sanctuaries of Europe to the underground railroads of so many freedom campaigns.
When you hear the voices of your parents; when you hear the music of your heritage; when you hear the singing of springtime birds; when you hear the speech of your lover; when you hear your heart telling you to care; when you hear the bells of freedom; that is when you are hearing the old story.
And when you are moved by these melodies, and inspired by these ideas, that is when you are truly marching, like the Hebrews, to the freedom land.
[Adapted from my book, Thinking Passover, Dutton, 1997. Available on Amazon.com]
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Rabbi Kamin is a freelance writer based in San Diego. He may be contacted at ben.kamin@sdjewishworld.com