Pittsburgh Jewish leaders urge hope, openness this Passover
Holiday is about refraining from despair and embracing idea that 'things can change and that we can go towards liberation and justice'
As Pittsburghers clean, shop and determine seating arrangements for upcoming seders, local rabbis and spiritual leaders are contemplating themes tied to the holiday. Whether delivered to congregants from pulpits, via emails or in conversation, the lessons reflect a desire to tie the ancient Israelites’ Exodus from Egypt to today’s turmoil.
With Operation Epic Fury now nearing a month, Passover is arriving at a precarious moment. Many people are experiencing a “mixture” of thoughts, Chabad of Squirrel Hill’s Rabbi Yisroel Altein said.
A Passover-related teaching by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, simplifies the complexity, Altein said.
Within the Haggadah, the passage beginning “Ha Lachma Anya” (“This is the bread of affliction”) concludes with “Hashta avdei; l’shana habah bnei chorin” (“Now we are slaves; next year we shall be free”).
Those bookended words promote “balance,” Altein said. Recognizing one’s current situation — even if difficult — is important, however, remembering the “big picture” is imperative, he said. “We’re on the way to full redemption.”
“Passover is one of the great Jewish resilience stories,” Temple Emanuel of South Hill’s Rabbi Aaron Meyer said. “We gather in our homes, we gather together with family and friends, not only to remind ourselves of our ancestors’ plight — and hopefully through that to remind ourselves that we can navigate through hard times to better days ahead — but we imagine as if we ourselves were there, internalizing this lesson in a more than intellectual way.”
Passover practices began millennia ago. One challenge this year is that “as Americans, we’re currently trapped in a debate about how great evil has to be before it demands to be confronted or demands resistance,” Meyer said. Both Purim and Passover are seasonal indicators that “sometimes a strong hand is needed for redemption more often than our modern sensibilities might like.”
The Passover story, in particular, “encourages us to not give into despair, but to embrace the idea that things can change and that we can go towards liberation and justice,” Congregation Dor Hadash’s Rabbi Amy Bardack said.
With Passover beginning April 1, Pittsburghers will look to a familiar tale of slavery and freedom for inspiration.
Bardack hopes takeaways involve realizations regarding domestic affairs.
“We are living in a unique moment when our obligation to support and protect those who seek refuge and safety is being undermined by our government,” she said. “There’s fear and intimidation, violence, against our own citizens and our own residents. The hopeful story of liberation, of overthrowing tyranny and moving from slavery to liberation, is very resonant now — even if we’re not the ones being threatened and enslaved.”
Another holiday message, Bardack said, is derived from the Haggadah’s words “Shebechol dor vador omdim aleinu l’chaloteinu” (“In every generation they rise against us to destroy us”). “I don’t think it’s helpful for us to get stuck in that narrative — to get stuck in everybody hates us and we are victims. I think it’s important for us to challenge ourselves to look at Jewish history more positively. Jewish history is also a story of incredible resilience. Jewish history is also about overcoming tremendous obstacles, and flourishing, and thriving in all sorts of settings despite antisemitism.”
Temple David’s incoming spiritual leader Cantor Kalix Jacobson has been thinking “a lot about antisemitism, for obvious reasons, with what’s been going on in the world, not just here in America, but also in the Netherlands.”
Jacobson, who currently serves as Temple Emanuel’s cantor, said a recent experience may prove one remedy to the hate-filled plight. While visiting a New York City-based pizza shop, and studying Talmud with a friend, Jacobson was approached by a non-Jewish young man who asked to sit beside them.
After 45 minutes, the stranger “kind of got emotional and was like, ‘Thank you for letting me join you.’ And then he left,” Jacobson said.
The episode affirmed a conviction the cantor has long held: “The only way that we combat antisemitism is by opening our doors.”
While doing so may feel counterintuitive — and safety precautions are necessary — opening the door for others may be the best approach this season, Jacobson continued. “Right now, it’s tempting to turn inward. And I think that for that precise reason, we should be turning outward.”
Days from now, seder celebrants worldwide will open their homes for Elijah the Prophet. “One of your friends might be Elijah, you just don’t know,” Jacobson said. “Open that door for them — not just for the symbolic figure of Elijah that comes to our Passover seders, but for the real people who would benefit from learning something about Jews in real life.”
Even with “rising antisemitic activity” and “heartbreaking attacks on synagogues,” it is essential to remember that “as Jews, we have survived for this long by leaning into our traditions, not hiding from them,” Congregation Beth Shalom’s Rabbi Seth Adelson said. “The reason that Am Yisrael Chai, that the Jewish people lives and thrives, is that we continue to tell our stories, to pray in sacred community, to observe the mitzvot and to understand that our framework gives our lives meaning and purpose.”
According to Adelson, recounting the journey from “freedom to slavery” is important; but the “greater message,” he continued, is “God took us out of Egypt so that we could receive that framework of Torah, inherit our land and maintain our holy covenant as a people. That is why we are still celebrating Pesach more than three millennia after the Exodus from Egypt.”
Passover, and the Haggadah itself, are tools for “knowing our own story,” Parkway Jewish Center’s spiritual leader Cantor Laura Berman said. “We retell the story every year, and every year we get something else out of it because life itself keeps changing.”
The Haggadah is a mechanism for telling a “foundational story,” but the narrative’s point is “self-determination,” she said. “Yes, it’s about God coming to our aid and splitting the sea, but it’s also with the assistance of humanity.”
Moses’ leadership and the people’s movement are models, Berman said. “As we travel through to a new potential, we more and more need to get rid of old ways of thinking and understand that there is a new potential out there, and we have to help build it.” PJC
Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
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