The significance of yesterday, January 6th, loomed throughout my day. It, of course, was not as impactful, destructive, or devastating as that day one year ago, but it felt crucial because the anniversary of a day like that asks us to think about how we tell the story. We knew that the breach of the Capitol would forever be ingrained in our country’s history, but yesterday, a year later, was the first anniversary. It pushes us to grapple with what it means for this type of event to be a part of our history and to think about how we grow from, and out of, that moment. What does it mean for us as a nation, and how do we learn from it?
I realized that in many ways, these are actually the central questions of this week’s Torah reading, Parshat Bo. While certainly the climactic part of the parsha is when we know the Israelites will be liberated from slavery in Mitzrayim, the Torah reading pauses to describe the Pesach ritual that should take place. In that context, the Torah teaches that we should honor this event every single year, and that our children will ask about the meaning of this ritual. This is the basis for the Four Questions at our Seder each year. But in the Torah telling us that we will be asked this question, it is also telling us that we should be prepared to have an answer. Every single year, as a part of our ritual, we have to grapple with how this informs who we are as Jews. How does our history impact our present? What do I continue to learn from it?
The Pesach story, the Exodus from Egypt, is our master story: it informs who we are as a Jewish people and what is important to us. And each of us may reflect on that foundational story in a different way. It impacts our Judaisms in different ways. So, too, the insurrection last year at the Capitol impacts who we are as Americans and will forever take up space in the American story. Our task is to think about how we tell the story and what it means as a part of our larger narrative.
The things that happen to us as individuals and as a collective are not simply events in history, they are not just points on a timeline. Even ever so slightly, they shift the plates that comprise our foundation. Part of our task is to ensure that we learn from that shifting, that we are able to incorporate it into our story. Because one day, our children will ask, “what does this mean to you?”
Shabbat Shalom, Rabbi Sarit
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