Passover Canceled This Year Because of a Plague?

Eliezer Diamond

Someone just shared some dark humor with me: what if Pesah is canceled this year because of a plague?

Like every good joke, this one contains a deep truth: it will be difficult to sit at the table and celebrate freedom when we are threatened and trapped, physically and otherwise, by an unseen malevolent force uncomfortably reminiscent of the plague of the first born.

It is a frightening time indeed. And yet, without making light of our present situation: our ancestors celebrated Pesah through good times and bad, during the Crusades and the Black Death, during the Chmelnitski massacres, in Auschwitz and in the gulags. Were they free? No, but they believed in the promise of freedom, and that gave them strength and hope.

And let us not forget: the very first celebration of Passover took place before the moment of liberation, before we actually left Egypt. But we conducted ourselves like a people sure that liberation was on its way, with girded loins, sandals on our feet and walking stick in hand, ready for the journey that we had faith would begin on the morrow.

In this moment we are not free. We are subject to a force that eludes our present efforts to halt and defeat it. Some of us will be sick; some will die. Some already have. But we cannot live without hope - not the passive hope that consists of waiting for God to make things whole again, but the hope that translates into action, into doing everything we can to counter this scourge. And let's take a page out of the Passover playbook. The first Passover reconstituted the Israelite families that had been cruelly torn apart by the dehumanizing forces of slavery. Today we are all one family. Call people you know and people you don't. Help others in every way you can. Participate in virtual minyanim and other events. We are stronger than we know.

May this Passover bring us all redemption.


haggadah Section: Introduction