I had basically been ignoring that Pesach was coming. For the past month, it’s felt years away, and then this past week, it hit. In other years when when I’ve spent weeks preparing my kitchen for Pesach, cooking meals, and corresponding with seder guests, this year, in all honesty, it will just be days. My kitchen will be a bare-bones Pesach kitchen; the meals are relatively sparse and there are no guests this year.
I grew up in a home where our seder tables bursted at the seams. Extra card tables from the basement were brought up to accommodate the last minute guests. I dreamed of the days when I’d have a home of my own and similarly be able to host. There’s a line in the seder liturgy that I’ve always connected to: kol dichvin yeitei vyeichol - let all who are hungry come and eat.To me this embodies so much of what it means to be Jewish - to create a radical embrace of others.
This week, as I led a class online guiding people through best practices for seder this year, and created a document to serve as a compendium for your seders, I have been stuck on this line that I love so much. Abe and I will sit at our dining room table, two nights in a row, and recite the words of our tradition, words that for millennia have been sources of hope and inspiration for freedom. But how can we say this line in earnest? How can I say ‘let all who are hungry come and eat’ when we aren’t actually inviting anyone?
Danny Kraft shared with me some inspiring Torah on this, and in response to my own questions I want to share it with you. One response in our tradition teaches that we can fulfill this Mitzvah, we can genuinely mean these words not necessarily by inviting anyone to join around our seder table, but to make sure, before the seder, that all who are hungry have food to eat.
This phrase in the haggadah comes originally from the Talmud: Rav Huna actually says this line everytime he eats in his home, not just at the Pesach seder. I wonder if Rav Huna used this phrase as an intentional reminder to himself, every time he sat down to a meal, that he should help others have the same right. I can’t imagine that each time he sat down to a meal he had enough to share with anyone who was hungry, but I do imagine that someone who says that line multiple times a day cultivates an orientation toward those who need food. Let all who are hungry eat.
This year, in the few days that I’m taking to prepare my kitchen for Pesach, I’ll also be making donations to MAZON: a Jewish Response to Hunger and the Mid-South Food Bank. These organizations are on the ground helping folks in our local community or our broader Jewish community have access to food in a time when it’s so desperately needed.
I am sad that this year I can’t share my Pesach meals with others. I am sad that I can’t invite you to join me. I hope and pray that my small part, our small parts together, will help all those who are hungry eat. In truth, every crisis gives us an opportunity to respond with compassion, love, and generosity, and amidst all the fear and uncertainty, there is beauty when we are able to reach out to care for others.
I wish each of you, and your families, wherever they are, a zissen Pesach, a sweet Pesach. Next year in Jerusalem.
Shabbat Shalom and Chag Sameach, Rabbi Sarit
We will NOT be having services at shul this Shabbat. I hope you will join Abe and me for Hachanah l’Shabbat (Preparing for Shabbat at 6:15PM this evening), and for Havdallah (Saturday at 8:15PM). Click those links to connect on Zoom, or check it out on Facebook.
Please check out our website for some Shabbat-related learning resources. You’ll find a d’var Torah, a study sheet for all prepared by Danny Kraft, and mystical readings on the parashah put together by Abe, Geo, and Danny.
Click here for a Haggadah compendium, with questions and divrei Torah to enhance your Pesach seder.
