A reflection on Passover, the Jewish festival which begins tonight, Covid-19 and the meaning of freedom (thread)

Tonight begins the week or so long Jewish festival of Passover (Pesach), an ancient harvest celebration which marks the beginning of Spring and for thousand of years has commemorated the ancient Israelites escape from slavery in Egypt.

Like every Jewish festival, Pesach is loaded with meaning and symbolism. We begin with a festive meal called a ‘Seder’, a carefully scripted story-telling involving song and ritual. For a week we stop eating bread and other risen food to remind us of ‘our’ suffering in Egypt.

Jewish festivals are a strange mix of celebration and melancholy. We shed a tear because we bring close great tragedies of Jewish history - we deliberately bring them closer so we do not forget. At the same time, we celebrate because we are, despite everything, still here.

For Jews, the Exodus, the Spanish Inquisition, the Pogroms, are still recent history. The Holocaust happened moments ago. That’s the way we live because we have learned that to forget is to make annihilation more likely. https://twitter.com/AdamWagner1/status/1030483408093437952

The Seder is focussed on relating the story of the ‘Exodus’, the extraordinary Old Testament tale of the literally miraculous escape from Egypt after 400 years of slavery. The purpose is to tell the story to our children, who will in turn tell it to theirs.

The key theme is ‘freedom’. The magic of a seder is that the theme resonates differently in every place and time. During the Holocaust, even in the death camps, seders were held, matza (flat bread) was eaten. I cannot even imagine what the meaning of ‘freedom’ was to them

By contrast, the seders I have attended have been jolly affairs. ‘Slavery’ for us, ‘un-freedom’, was metaphorical, or something that happened to other unfortunate people who we took a few minuets to empathise with. "Remember that you were slaves in Egypt” as we say each year.

This year, Jews around the world are experiencing a kind of un-freedom. Our synagogues have ben closed, we cannot join our relatives, except perhaps by Zoom if your denomination permits that (mine does, many don’t).

In the UK, we are unable to leave our home except for a very limited number of ‘reasonable excuses’. The police haver been given power to prevent us leaving our homes or gathering in public. Business and schools have been shut down indefinitely.

As a human rights lawyer, I have spent the past couple of weeks trying to navigate the immense new powers the state has granted police and other authorities to enforce the ‘lockdown’. They are needed, but wow - I could never havre dreamed we would be here in my lifetime.

But what is freedom? Is it the narrow idea of being able to do what you want, see who you want, be where you want? I’m not sure. I think what we really mean by freedom is the ability to decide our own destiny and choose our fate.

Covid-19, like any infectious, dangerous disease, destroys our freedom by leaving our fate up to luck. Viruses are equalisers as they attack every family indiscriminately. They are a historical constant -, one of the 10 plagues in the Exodus story is a gruesome disease.

The freedom we are now fighting for is to live our lives free of this virus. Our personal freedoms have been suspended to achieve that ultimate aim. Viewed in one way, it is an extraordinary collective effort to save life and determine our collective fate

I love the Spring, especially the early weeks when the sad, dark winter is replaced by the budding of new life. I love the smells and the beautiful shades of green. And especially the blossom.

As my family sits down for tonight’s seder, with our relatives on Zoom, alone together, and nothing quite right, I will take hope from the season and the fact that every winter ends. Jewish history is a testament to that, and we have had some pretty dark winters.

Wishing you all a safe and happy Pesach.

May freedom return for all of us.

And for those who have now experienced real restrictions in our lives, perhaps next year we will do a bit more to help others who have never experienced the privilege of determining their own fate.