Triumph Over Tyranny

Newsletter April 15, 2024 Together, we're #keepingitsacred...

This week in Israel, schools are closed.  Kids are often sent off on camping trips and other activities to get them out of the house so their parents can clean for Passover. This ritual involves using a feather (or perhaps feather duster) to clean out all corners of cupboards and everywhere the crumbs of leavened bread, forbidden to eat during the week of Passover, are found. If you have ever engaged in this activity, you know that this ritual can take on a spiritual quality encouraging the sweeper to consider what else needs to be swept out of their lives to make room for the holy. 

My favorite section of my favorite Passover Haggadah may guide us in this thoughtful meditation. In The Family Seder, author Alfred J. Kolatch tells us:

Although it is the Pharaoh of old who is the tyrant of the Haggadah, it is not he alone of whom we speak tonight. We speak this evening of other tyrants and other tyrannies as well. We speak: Of the tyranny of poverty and the tyranny of privation, Of the tyranny of wealth, and the tyranny of war, Of the tyranny of power and the tyranny of despair, Of the tyranny of disease and the tyranny of time, Of the tyranny of ignorance and the tyranny of color. To all these tyrannies do we address ourselves this evening. Passover brands them all as abominations in the sight of God.

This is why the Passover story has survived so long- because the archetype of Pharaoh persists in our lives. As long as we are human, we will struggle against all of these ills and more because the nature of tyrannies is that they get a grip and then take over. But the Passover story, of Moses and the Israelites finding their way out from under the oppression of the tyrant Pharaoh, is a valorization of the struggle to resist tyrannies. In fact, Passover is a bold celebration of triumph over tyrannies. 

So what tyranny are we facing these days? What are the biggest threats that threaten to overcome us? What do we need to sweep out from the corners of our hearts and minds to make room for the holy? 

So, what tyrannies do you need to take a stand against to make sacred space for the holy in your life? 

This is the question of the season. 

This is how we’re keeping it sacred. 

Together, we’re #keepingitsacred...

Rabbi Heather Miller

Founder, Keeping It Sacred

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