Finding the Joy · Parashat Pesach (Day 1)
The First Seder Was a Wartime Meal
The First Seder Was a Wartime Meal
Four armed guards and a police officer stood outside a synagogue in Dunwoody on Sunday night. Inside, an Iranian-American comedian was killing — Tehran Von Ghasri, the son of an Iranian Jewish father and an African American mother. A Haitian-American hip-hop producer who found his way to Judaism performed music that split the difference between gritty and sacred. A Persian Jewish vocalist sang in languages most of the audience didn’t speak. A Holocaust survivor — 90-something, still sharp — told his story with the economy of someone who has told it many times.
The event was called Bridges of Hope, organized by the Atlanta Israel Coalition. Due to security considerations, we could only publicize it through certain channels. People came anyway.
I keep thinking about those guards at the door. The guards stood watch so the joy could happen. That’s an old arrangement.
The Torah describes the very first Pesach meal — the one eaten in Egypt, the night before everything changed — with a detail that lands differently this year:
וְכָ֘כָה֮ תֹּאכְל֣וּ אֹתוֹ֒ מׇתְנֵיכֶ֣ם חֲגֻרִ֔ים נַֽעֲלֵיכֶם֙ בְּרַגְלֵיכֶ֔ם וּמַקֶּלְכֶ֖ם בְּיֶדְכֶ֑ם וַאֲכַלְתֶּ֤ם אֹתוֹ֙ בְּחִפָּז֔וֹן פֶּ֥סַח ה֖וּא לַיהֹוָֽה׃ This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly: it is a passover offering to GOD.
Sandals on. Staff in hand. Ready to move. The first seder was not a relaxed evening. It was a meal eaten in danger, by people who did not yet know if the promise would hold.
Freedom didn’t begin in safety. It began in a room where the threat was real and the table was set anyway.
A few verses later, the Torah names the night:
לֵ֣יל שִׁמֻּרִ֥ים הוּא֙ לַֽיהֹוָ֔ה לְהוֹצִיאָ֖ם מֵאֶ֣רֶץ מִצְרָ֑יִם הֽוּא־הַלַּ֤יְלָה הַזֶּה֙ לַֽיהֹוָ֔ה שִׁמֻּרִ֛ים לְכׇל־בְּנֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל לְדֹרֹתָֽם׃ That was for GOD a night of vigil to bring them out of the land of Egypt; that same night is GOD’s, one of vigil for all the children of Israel throughout the ages.
Leil shimurim. A night of watching. Same root as shomer, the word for a guard. The watching was mutual: the Israelites watched for the signal to leave, and God watched over them while they waited.
Tonight, Jews will search their homes for chametz, and some — the ones in Israel — will do it between missile sirens. Families in the north are planning seders around which bomb shelter can fit the most chairs. A website called IsraelForPesach.com launched this week to match stranded tourists with Israeli families willing to open their doors.
And on Sunday, a group of young survivors of the Nova music festival massacre gathered around long tables to bake matzot, led by Kesher Yehudi. They mixed flour and water and watched the clock — eighteen minutes, not a second more. One survivor, Shaked, told Israel National News: the matzot they baked with their own hands gave the mitzvah a meaning it hadn’t carried before. She called it “the real victory.”
The real victory. Not a military victory. Hands in dough, eighteen minutes on the clock, scars visible, and the matzah comes out kosher.
The Haggadah famously says b’chol dor vador — in every generation, a person is obligated to see themselves as though they personally went out of Egypt. Most years, that line requires imagination. This year, it requires less.
The matzah — lechem oni, the bread of affliction, but also the bread of faith — is the food you make when you don’t have time to wait for the dough to rise. It is the bread of people in a hurry to be free.
Tomorrow evening, Modi and I will sit down to our rabbi’s seder table. Second night, we’ll be at Cheryl’s. Somewhere in Israel, a family will host a stranger they met through a website three days ago. Somewhere in the south, Nova survivors will break their own hand-baked matzot over a seder plate. Somewhere in the north, a family will eat in a bomb shelter and call it the table.
The guards are at the door. The table is set. The night of watching has begun.
Chag Pesach sameach.
— Uriel ben Avraham