Passover arrives, during another season of change

Tonight at sundown, the faithful of this community will begin observation for the first of three important religious holidays on the calendar in the weeks ahead, Passover.

Passover speaks to the core of Judaism and continues through April 4. It is about divine intervention to bring a people from slavery into freedom. It marks a defining moment in Jewish history.

Easter is about divine intervention too — in a uniquely personal and painful way — to free people from the burdens of sin and death. Holy Week, the most important holiday for Christians, begins with Palm Sunday and continues through Easter on April 4.

The two holidays are inextricably linked: Jesus was in Jerusalem for the Passover festival at the time of his crucifixion, Palm Sunday celebrates his arrival. Many scholars think of the Last Supper as a Seder — the ritual holiday meal celebrated in Jewish homes to this day.

Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting, prayer, reflection and community, begins on April 12.

If Passover, Easter and Ramadan are linked, all three celebrations come in close proximity because of the lunar calendar’s vagaries. And each is connected to the other by the desire to be with family and friends no matter their faith or the ritual words spoken over meals and worship.

Hearing those words in person may remain tantalizingly out of reach again this spring for many.

The pace of vaccinations and remaining social distance restrictions means that travel and gatherings remain limited to slow the spread of COVID-19. There will be more in-person services this year than last, but they will be altered by social distance rules and masks.

As Jews gather for the start of Passover, they are focused on the idea that liberty — ultimately governed by law — is part of a divine plan no tyrant will ever defeat. This has been a part of the American heritage ever since the Red Sea closed on the pharaoh’s army.

Ask the American founders who deliberated in a building whose bell still bears words from Leviticus: “Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.” Or ask the Black slaves who found the story of Moses and the Children of Israel a reassurance and a promise.

Despite these shared beliefs, members of the Jewish community remain targets of hate and bias in this community. We are not too far removed from the days of segregation, which not only excluded Black Americans from a full share of the American dream but also Jewish Americans.

This isn’t just history. The ADL, in its most recent reporting on anti-Semitism incidents, found there were have been a dozen incidents of extremism and anti-Semitism in Maryland in the last year or so. They range from harassment and slurs aimed at a group of teenage boys in Baltimore to a swastika etched into the side of a car in Annapolis.

The timing of Passover, Easter and Ramadan incorporates their shared and unique messages into the changing of the seasons.

And we certainly are at a time of change. Leaders in Washington and Annapolis are hopefully looking forward to this summer as a time when life might resemble something akin to what many recall as normal.

Changes go beyond that, to the contest of ideas over what it means to be an American and America’s place in the world.

If the price of keeping lives safe until change arrives means this year’s Passover, Easter and Ramadan observances remain altered, it is the least we as a community can do.

Reaching that point will only be worthwhile if we recommit to the work of understanding and appreciating the things that unify us and the things that make us unique.