
As the long ushering of Passover begins, there are many things upon which we can rely.
The house will be scrubbed from top to bottom.
There will be nary a crumb found and many a knuckle rubbed raw.
There will be a not-so-quiet din as children of all ages search for not-so-hidden pieces of bread.
There will be a cooking frenzy that sends the smells of cherished foods wafting about.
There will be mad dashes to the shower, madder dashes to the long-awaited- invisible-but-palpable finish line, and then…. THEN…
Candles will be lit, prayers will be said, and in several moments more, friends and family will sit comfortably at your table, smiling, expressing gratitude, exuding love, and radiating joy at being seated near one another.
It’s a grand image, isn't it?
It’s inspiring, the fulfillment of a dream, you might say!
It’s incredible-
And entirely made up.
Holidays are a time to gather and enjoy, celebrate and renew, but in the real world they can be really difficult. They remind us of who is no longer with us, this year, who is on a battlefield and can’t be with us, and for many serve as reminders of familial fissures that are too painful and too difficult to ignore. But you know what else makes them harder? A wartime plot twist that makes us question everything we know.
You see this essay was originally written with a focus on how to handle interpersonal stressors and holiday anxieties. But that intention fell far out of focus on April 14th, when 300+ Iranian drones and missiles were shot into and towards Israel, changing amongst other things, the scope of just how much we can focus on at once.
Passover is less than a week away and the removal of chametz is in full swing. A bizarre mix of self-regulation while fearing for our lives, acknowledgment of terror as we try not to get swallowed by it, and the search for a touchstone we can hold on to while the bottom feels like it's dropping out from under us, are in full swing, too. Passover almost seems inopportune right now, but it’s almost here.
There is much to be said for our resilience. The Jewish people, and Israelis in particular, have come by their abilities to cope, survive, and live longer than any expiration date set for us, through dogged determination, unrelenting tenacity, and a flair for utterly ridiculous, macabre humor.
The day after a swarm of orange-lighted bombs came our way, many of us joked about the 750 kg (piece of a) missile that landed in the Dead Sea. I rhetorically asked friends on social media, “What, like you've never seen an Iranian missile floating in the Dead Sea?” A clinical-psychologist friend who teaches and provides trauma-centered care responded with, “Look, it was a stressful night. It needed a spa treatment.”
The jokes were equal parts funny, cringeworthy, and terrifying, for they revealed our individual and collective dread and stupefied shock. We’d been warned for years that the very last country with whom we wanted to be ballistically embroiled was Iran. And there we were after getting word that rockets were en route, waiting with not much else to do, unsure we’d live to see another day.
In the days and hours that have passed since, our country and our people have gone back to their routines. Work has continued, school is back in session, chametz is still hidden in places we didn’t even know existed, and yet again, we wait for answers to impossible questions.
The list of questions seems infinite and overwhelming, as does the breadth of this not-just-an-existential-threat-anymore.
Though I cannot guarantee an allayment of fear. I can offer the hope that each of us will honor our need to share, or not, what we are feeling with those we love and trust. I hope that each of us is able to enjoy Pesach and in turn, create an atmosphere that is inspiring and levelheaded. I pray we remember that this holiday, one that symbolizes faith and promise, serves to remind us even in the face of existential threat, that we can indeed celebrate our freedom, our survival, and the renewal of our dreams of peoplehood.
Pesach is the celebration of a very real, very weary, terrified yet hopeful people who learned to trust a process they did not initially understand or welcome. In turn, they were given an unending legacy that included life itself and freedom. Today and in the days to come we will bear witness not only to that which our ancestors were gifted but what we have been gifted, too. As Passover cleaning continues and life and loss sit together awkwardly on the horizon; let us be smart, let us be honest, let us be brave, and let us remember that we have and will continue to overcome, through sheer will and unwavering fortitude- matzah, rockets, humor, and all.

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