The foundational story of Passover is the Jews' delivery from slavery. Break Egyptian bondage and begin a process of wandering towards actualization and self-determination in the Holy Land. It's been more than 3,000 years and yet the message persists. It becomes somewhat more abstract, more subtle of a puzzle, now that the majority of Jews live in either America and Israel and do not want to leave. One can extend a metaphor to the moral imperative of all of humanity to break free of the bondage of this singular planet — to deliver humanity across the cosmos. Thinking smaller and more concrete, one may wonder how Jews may offer wisdom and compassion to subjugated peoples in this world. Slavery and bondage still exist, even when we blind ourselves to them by poisoning our minds using devices whose materials are mined and whose components are assembled by people who cannot be called free. But this year a different sort of Delivery is on my mind.
My daughter was born a week-and-a-half ago, delivered from the womb. Gestation is not slavery but it is a sort of bondage. To what extend was Egypt a "womb" for the Jews, a challenge through which they had to pass to become the people they became? Did the toil, subjugation, and humiliation of Egyptian slavery grind open the Jews' eyes, unlocking the quantum leap in morality on which the world's civilizations ride even today? It is hard to say. One prefers to resist the urge to thank traumas for the growth they inspire, lest you consign yourself to an endless cycle of unnecessary struggle. Progress is indeed possible and it is important to observe that the Jews did not ask God to counter-enslave the Egyptians or enslave another people as some kind of dark repayment. So too with child rearing. I hope to pass on lessons that I learned the hard way as well as lessons I learned the easy way because they were passed on earlier by someone who learned them the hard way. I want to open up space in my daughter's life to reach past my own limits and the limits of her ancestors. In fact, part of that space, and I say this not without considerable fear and uncertainty, might afford greater challenges, thornier dilemmas, and more acute pains than what I could have handled. Passing through an incredible life-gate into parenthood means, in part, being honest that many doors close to me now. Even within a single domain, music, the before-and-after-ness of it all presents stark and loud: gone are the days of limitless teenage energy to practice; gone are the late nights of my twenties, cuttin' it up in the clubs. Wouldn't have it any other way — I told that part of my story.
The main realization I face this Passover is not that I am working towards a cushy, aristocratic life for my daughter. To negate all toil is in fact to fall into another kind of bondage: the bondage of leisure and pleasure, where an allergy to work closes all but the most proximal and obvious of doors. Our ancient ancestors passed through Egypt from slavery into freedom and their children took that freedom and leveraged it towards nationhood. Their descendants codified those lessons into the Torah; further descendants commented on and enriched Judaism through the Talmud; modern Jews draw from such an unbelievably deep pool of experiences, moral quandaries, cautionary tales, and pillars of excellence that we, as a people, contribute so much to science, literature, art, music, and morality. It is not by accident. The chant "it would have been enough for us" meets its ever-intensifying counter-chant: "the bar keeps getting higher." What is enough for me is not enough for my daughter.
But do not forget the crux of the Passover story: the mercy that punctured God's wrath. All of Jewish excellence and indeed all of Jewish life period was only made possible by the passing-over of the Angel of Death. If God gives you a chance, you must take it, and take it fast and hard. Thank Him later. Be patient as you wait for your chance, but strike when it appears on the horizon. This is how children are conceived and how lightning-bolts of inspiration become masterworks of artistic creation. How careers blossom and how friendships grow.
Each of us is still in his or her own desert, wandering. Pray that you will have the courage and wherewithal to take the path out if and when it presents itself.
As we always say and will always say,
Next Year in Jerusalem!
April 12, 2025
Sylmar, CA