A week from now we will celebrate Pesach or Passover. It is the time in which we were set free by G*d. It is a time in which we left Egypt in the middle of the night. It is also a sad moment of reflection for me in this modern era. Makedah and I are both Jews. We did not become Jews based one another. We did not become Jews hoping to become part of any congregation or house of worship. Yes, we would like to know more Jews and feel a oneness that people speak about. But we do not need their affirmation to continue to be Jews or Jewish. The two of us embarked on our journey to being Jews long before we met one another. Adonai, brought the two of us together. Today we travel this lonely road together. My family came up from the bowels of the Deep and Middle South. They came from a land in which prejudice, racism, intimidation of Blacks were and still is in some places routine. I am the son of a share cropper. My father had no more than a 3rd grade education. He was not able to write his own name. My mother had no more than a sixth grade education. She was able to read and write on a basic but well enough to "get by level". They like the Hebrews were born into the legacy of slavery and humiliation. Makedah has never known her parents as she is orphaned. But, she did not come from any higher level of society than I. We can understand first-hand what it must have felt like to be Hebrew slaves in bondage those 400 years. In their hearts they wanted to curse the Creator who put them on the Earth. All around them was despair, self-hatred and anger. The birth of a child was not a joyous occasion. They knew their children would take their place in the mud shacks they called "home". These children would work the fields, they would sweat in the rock quarries and they would be the sex slaves of their overseers. They could not resist nor protest their ill treatment. There were no ears to hear their pleas nor power to stop the endless cycle of "living death".
Today, there are no more shackles around our ankles to keep us from running away. But the same slavery, despair and anger is being kindled in the souls of minorities and third world people. The Pharaohs of Egypt has been replaced largely by the "well-to-do white" Americans and Europeans. Unfortunately, some of the task masters are Jews. They want to be accepted so much as equals, they have forgot where they came from. They have forgot that it was "white" Europeans that raped and murdered almost annihilated not only them but countless other people in this world. Many Jews have been allowed to pass into mainstream society and have become so much apart of it, they worship the same Gods as their former overseers do, money, race and "isms". The slaves of today are not held in bondage with metal chains. The metal chains have been replaced with economic chains and chains forged by centuries of racism. Pesach is not only a time to remind us of how G*d delivered us from out of bondage. It also a time for the Jews to plead for and if possible help release others who are in bondage, whether that is economic, racial, political or otherwise.
Pesach is a moment in history to humble us. We are to reach out to everyone not just the Jew.
We left in the middle of the night because Grandfather knew the heart of man. They (G*d) knew man would not keep his word. True enough, Pharaoh chased the Hebrews into the desert. Will the Jews of today keep their word? Will they repeat endless Pesach or Passover rituals and afterwards forget why we celebrate it at all? Bondage is not only a physical barrier, it can also be spiritual. If a soul has no other to feel apart of, then it too lives in despair and isolation. G*d does want us to perform meaningless rituals. The G*d of Israel, is a G*d of action. Likewise, he and they expect no less of us this Passover season. My parents and those before them suffered. Makedah and I still suffer this day. We do not have fancy Seder plates neither can we afford all the foods for the whole week. But rest assured that we have not forgot the sacrifices made by those who came before us.
We know the stories told to us by our ancestors and our own personal experiences of man's inhumanity to man. Pesach is not just a festive nor High holy day. It is reality. It is a reality that she and I live everyday.
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