Month: April 2025

Oranges, Olives and Lemons

/ howardshapiro / 8 Comments

It feels like every year there is a new item to add to your Seder plate or a new reading to insert before the second cup or the eating of answering of the four questions or the telling of the story. This year its lemons. Lemons for their color; lemons for their taste; lemons for the hostages sitting still in darkness and wondering if they will ever see the light. I like how the tradition grows and how it adapts. I like that it is not frozen in time or place but that it is living and breathing.

Yes there is an order to the Seder. And I follow it more or less. And the words written centuries ago take on different meanings almost every year it seems. Like the word “enough” – in Dayenu – it would have been enough. Yes. the poem/song lists all the things we have historically experienced as a people from leaving Egypt to discovering Torah and Shabbat, from building the Temple to entering the Land. Any one of them would have been enough. But there’s another way to roughly translate Dayenu. (Hebrew scholars look away!) It is enough. Enough with war; enough with Hamas terrorism; enough days the Hostages have lived in tunnels; enough bombings and death of the innocent both Palestinian and Israeli; enough tariffs, enough ICE, enough presidential privelege and power grabbing; enough shirking of congressional responsibility in leading this country.

The trick in leading a Seder is to balance the ritual, text and free flowing discussion. People sometimes tell me that they went to a “real” Seder where they read the whole Haggadah and even went back after the meal. If I could rewrite the order of things I would put Elijah before hard boiled egg – Elijah is the harbinger of hope and promise – that opening of the door isn’t just to welcome a spirit to sip the wine. that opening of the door is an act of faith that we can make tomorrow better than today.

Of course we’re not doing so good with today. Hence the lemon. The piece I saw says put the lemon on the Seder plate and slice it right before Maror. Add it to your Hillel Sandwich – so the bitterness of slavery and sweetness of freedom are integrated with the sharpness of the hostages’ fates.

At LabShul, one of the out there congregations in our country has a heading on their Seder instructions which I love. SEYDER: Say More/Read Less. So here’s my take: This is all about a discussion. It is not about slavishly following the text. It is reacting and intereacting with the tradition. It is about interrupting the leader. it is about questioning the rituals. It is about lemons, oranges, and olives.

Freakin Amazing

/ howardshapiro / 2 Comments

I take a yoga class about once a week and the teacher consistently ends the class with “In case no one has told you yet today, ‘You are freakin amazing. Namaste.’” 

I believe her. We all are.

To be living to this age; to be living in this age; to be able to look back and be proud of most of your yesterdays; to know that the work is far from done and to know that it might be getting harder and harder to believe that it every will be done. I take that back. It won’t ever be done. The art of being human takes a lot of effort, and we rise and fall and fall and rise almost as often as we breathe in and breathe out.

That’s an exaggeration of course. The art of being human is knowing that nothing seems to remain the same. On my way to Yoga, I was listening to NPR. They were discussing the Administration’s executive orders and their impact on graduate students who are studying and doing research here in some of our most prestigious universities.  Deportation orders; ICE arrests; threats of “defunding” grants and programs and tying so much of this to protecting Jewish students and being pro-Israel and anti-Hamas all were included the in conversation. Throwing all of this up against a wall painted red and black with the words “Free Speech”.

I am waiting for all of this to backfire. That means I am afraid the day will come when the tide will turn and resentment against the Jews will grow for having privileged and protected status. I know it isn’t logical and it’s probably a function of my generation. But I am very wary of the Administration’s motives. They can turn on a dime. Witness: Zalensky.

But enough. This is what I know (in Biblical parlance): Gird your loins. The fight is far from over. The walls of the city may be breached but with will and confidence and faith in each other we can rebuild – and believe that not only are we ‘freakin ‘ amazing but so is our country. In the words of Jewish tradiiton: may it come soon and in our days.