Pass Over

I hate Passover. But, given that Passover commemorates liberation, a core value that I wanted to introduce to my son when he turned five, I decided to read the Passover Haggadah to him. We sat at our oak kitchen table, and I started to read. In the beginning, he seemed to find the tale engaging, but when I began to recount the 10 Egyptian plagues, he started to have an anguished look on his face. And when I reached the tenth plague – the death of all first-born Egyptian children – he burst into tears. I suddenly felt as if it were I who was hearing this horrifying story for the first time. I was transported back in time to the moment when I caught my father drinking the wine that celebrants leave for the prophet Elijah at the end of the Seder. It was a harsh realization in my five-year old mind that there was no God. I shoved the Haggadah aside and stated, “bad book! But, of course, this didn’t settle the issue.

I have often thought about the role of religion and ideology in creating and justifying the brutal experiences of oppression, subjugation and enslavement. But, as I was wiping away my son’s tears, I had another moment of reckoning and my focus switched to the costs involved in gaining liberation and freedom. I began to view the Passover story as one that symbolizes the ultimate justification given to the expression of ruthless cruelty in the quest for liberation. My core belief in the value of freedom was being challenged. Not at any price. I feel clear now that personally I would rather be a slave than gain my freedom by killing the children of my masters.

Now, looking in the mirror as if on Judgment Day, I see an Israeli who: left Israel 45 years ago and had considered giving up her Israeli citizenship, but ruled it out when she realized it would be shedding responsibility as an Israeli in the diaspora whose government is committing genocide while continuing to wave the Holocaust flag; a Jew, who doesn’t do enough to break the umbilical cord with Israel and