The locked-down Seder night
Once again, this locked-down Pesach, there could be no Elijah, not even a virtual one, the door firmly shut, though the family’s old silver wine cup, filled to the brim, awaits him, as it did last year and had done over many joyous years, welcoming.
You never knew.
The long dining room table, normally set for twenty or so, is set for two.
Yet we celebrate as best we can,
Zooming and Skyping as many will, a Passover service like no other.
‘Next year in Jerusalem’ is what we say.
‘Next year anywhere’ is what we pray.
The songs we sing are in a minor key.
‘Why is this night different from all other nights?’ the family’s youngest normally asks.
Why indeed.
This Seder night there are even more than the usual questions, and fewer answers, more to contemplate than the bitter herbs and unleavened bread we eat and the story of the Exodus we repeat.
The ten gruesome plagues God visited on the Egyptians are all too real this night as thousands round the world still fall to an invisible one every bit as cruel.
The drops of wine we spill, one by one, as each of those plagues is recalled seem to have become more like real blood than the blood they symbolize.
That we should be continuing to suffer one ourselves while extolling others may be history’s irony.
Is God’s hand in this?
Let our people go, but let all people live. Now is the time to reconcile and forgive.