Why is this Passover different from all other Passovers?

Last year in my Passover message, I encouraged everyone to stay at home for at least two weeks. Who would have guessed that two weeks would have become an entire year!

For most of us, for most of the Passovers of our lives, we have been free. Free to travel to be with relatives. Free to embrace our family members and friends. Free to invite neighbors, friends and new acquaintances into our homes. Free to browse in shops for our favorite Passover foods. We haven’t always been healthy, happy, or secure, but only a few of us ever have experienced constraints on these basic freedoms of movement and interaction.

In the past we’ve had the luxury of approaching the Passover story as mythic history, as treasured lore, as parable and metaphor. The Hebrew name for Egypt is Mitzrayim - מִצְרַיִם - meaning “narrow place,” reflecting the ancient Egyptian civilization that flourished along the Nile River, a narrow strip of green supporting life in an otherwise arid landscape. Every year at Pesach we ask ourselves, “What are the narrow places in my life and my psyche? How do I need to widen my horizons and my awareness?”

This year we’re all aching to literally come out of the narrow place of pandemic confinement. Some of us have received the vaccination, others are patiently waiting their turn. We have been warned that this is not the time to throw caution to the wind and try to return to pre-pandemic behaviors and habits. Yet as new infection rates are dropping across the country, there is a feeling of anticipation, a hopefulness, as if we can start to see around the corner.