#blogexodus : freedom — braiding three strands

a braid of three strands

There are many pos­si­ble modes for under­stand­ing the events retold in the Pesach Haggadah.

Of these, three are braid­ed togeth­er so that, if we con­cen­trate exclu­sive­ly on any one of them, we dimin­ish the spe­cial qual­i­ties of the entire story.

By par­tic­i­pat­ing in the sym­bol­ic actions built into the order of the Seder,
we can share in:

• the expe­ri­ence of the rebirth of the nat­ur­al world around us, 
• the nation­al lib­er­a­tion of our people, 
• the spir­i­tu­al redemp­tion of each indi­vid­ual human being.

We begin the Seder evening:

• some of us feel­ing shack­led by the bonds of winter, 
• some of our people—and oth­er peo­ples of the world—persecuted,
• many of us con­fined by our own per­son­al limitations.

which is the thickest strand in the braid of your seder?

Seder night we hope to set in motion:

• process­es of growth that encour­age with­in each of us the renew­al of each person’s unique vision, and 
• efforts to work for the free­dom of our scattered—and all oppressed—people,
• as we see about us the flow­er­ing of a new year.

Indeed, we will begin our Seder here.

How­ev­er, our goals are neither

• our renew­al,
• our free­dom,
• nor our flowering.

Pesach is but the point­er to the accep­tance of our com­mit­ments to com­plete these tasks—in a har­vest­ing of the fruits of our labors yet to come.

How will each of us follow that pointer?

what is “#blogexodus”?

My friend and col­league Phyl­lis Som­mers has thought of yet a new cre­ative way to pre­pare for Peasach. You can learn more here.

blog­ging the exodus