The tasks ahead?

Once again we have recited the age-old epic of our liberation from slavery.

We have tasted the new growth of a world released from winter

We have celebrated advances our,

and other peoples of the world,

have made toward freedom from oppression.

We have focused our attention on how each one of us

can become strengthened

to feel,

think and

act so as to take an active role in our own lives.

Each year we repeat the same phrase and seem to return to the same place from where we began.

☞ With what action do I intend to begin the healing? How will I devote my efforts this year?

We began our Seder by asking

Who are you?

Where are you coming from?

Where are you going?

To which we heard the answer:

I am Israel. I am one who struggles with God.

I am coming from Mitzra’yim, from a narrow tightness to openness.

I am going to Jerusalem, a place of wholeness.

There are at least two “Jerusalems”.

For thousands of years we have imagined both:

a Jerusalem of stone and one of the spirit.

If, on reflection, we can state that we have—each of us, in our own individual way—made some progress to draw together the various strands of our lives, then, perhaps “Israel,” “Egypt,” and “Jerusalem” represent something different to us now.

There may be a glimmer of a change in our lives as we transition from one metaphorical Egypt to, perhaps, a different metaphorical Jerusalem.

Lo Alecha…

לֹא עָלֶיךָ הַמְּלָאכָה לִגְמוֹר, וְלֹא אַתָּה בֶן חוֹרִין לִבָּטֵל מִמֶּנָּה

Lo alecha ham’laca ligmor, v’lo atah ven chorim libatel mimenah.

You don’t have to finish the task, but neither are you free to desist from it.¹

If so, we can conclude, stating that we have conducted our Seder with the appropriate intention.

Therefore, as we have celebrated this festival tonight, so may we celebrate it, all of us together, next year again—in joy,

in a world which we have helped to bring closer to the Messianic era.

We begin by celebrating our current freedom with song!

Next Year
in a
Community of Wholeness