Pesach

Elaine Fine writes about Passover, which begins at sundown today:

Why is this first night of Passover different from all other first nights of Passover?

Because all over the world people will be celebrating in their own private spaces, unable to share the meal and the ritual with family and friends. Because our connections in isolation are made possible through the magic of the internet and cell phones (who could have imagined this a few decades ago?), we can reach out to one another (around the world!) and communicate asynchronously or in real time. We can all share the pain of the plagues, both physical and psychological, that are literally (and I mean literally) infecting different parts of our world at different times, and with varying degrees of acuity as they move from place to place.

She concludes:
Once this pandemic has run its first course, and once we have a vaccine to prevent it from ever returning, will the experience of it change the way we live our lives and run our government? Will the professions of public service ever progress (at least in the American Republican party) towards something akin to what the words are supposed to stand for?

When we say, "Next year in Jerusalem," I hope that we, in America, will we be looking forward to a politically-reorganized country involved in the complicated process of healing.

Amen to that. And let us hope that the long-suffering people of Israel finally get a stable government dedicated to public service.