This Passover, We Are Not Free

While we endure the pandemic and its consequences, we still have the best freedom of all: to imagine a different and better future.

Photo by Aniket Bhattacharya on Unsplash

Let all who are hungry come and eat.

This is a quote from the Haggadah, the book used during a Passover seder.

But this Passover, few of us are opening our doors to friends and family, much less to strangers.

The rituals and meaning of Passover are brought into stark relief by the pandemic and our shelter-at-home policies.

Mark a sign upon your door, the Jewish slaves were told in the time of Moses, and you’ll be safe inside your home.

Today we once again fear what is occurring outside our homes, and seek shelter within. The virus spreads and exists all around us, unseen, sometimes even to those who carry it.

But the virus is not the only plague surrounding us. There is a lack of adequate health care, there is financial and food insecurity, our planet is warming in ways that will have affects just as severe as the pandemic. In fact, it’s likely our destruction of wildlife habitat is the root cause of the zoonotic diseases that most threaten us.

And there is also, unfortunately, a predictable spin-off plague generated by the virus. Passover is one of the most widely observed Jewish…