When my mother was dying of the breast cancer that had spread to her brain, she lost functionality in ways I didn’t expect. She would start the motion of bringing her fork to her mouth when she was wheeled up to the table, even though food had not yet been put before her, and she did not yet have a fork in her hand.
This proud woman, who was a judge, who lived almost entirely in her head, could not read and bit by bit she lost the ability to speak. It was agony for her and for us to see. One shabbat I had flown in from London, where I was living (I came every other weekend that last, terrible year) to my parents’ home in New Jersey. I lit candles, I blessed them, and the wine, and the challah…and remarkably, she was able to sing along. Somehow that part of her brain still resonated to the language and the rituals and the music she had learned as a girl. I cried, but it was wonderful to sing with her even in those terrible days.
These memories came back to me as I thought about Easter and Passover this year — which were celebrated by the world’s Christians and Jews in the past few weeks. Both holidays are in part about memory. But what is memory? Is it something we learn in our childhoods that is buried deep in our reptilian brain?
The first time I went to Israel was with my family on a group tour in 1977. We saw the procession of the stations of the Cross, the Via Dolorosa. Even to my cynical teenage self it was moving.The marchers did not think this was merely symbolic. They were not being ironic when they carried the Cross and wept.
This wasn’t religion as I knew it. My family were modern, educated, Reform Jews. The practices and principles of our lives were informed by intellectuals, by mathematics, by economics. But I was moved by the faith I saw. To this day, I think that understanding what the celebrants that I saw were feeling is the path for me to truly believe that each of us, as Jews, were individually and collectively, redeemed from Egypt — in the way that many Christians could emotionally relate to the risen Christ.
On Passover, Jews all over the world get together for a special dinner called a Seder. They use a book called the Haggadah to retell the story of the Exodus from Egypt — the same book that has been used by Jews for nearly 2,000 years. The Haggadah uses symbols like matzah and bitter herbs to illuminate the bitterness of slavery for the Israelites in Egypt, and how God saved them and enabled them to escape from Egypt and begin the journey to freedom. The Passover story has been the inspiration for countless revolutions of oppressed people around the world. Recounting the story of Passover is central to the Jewish faith. We are commanded to remember that we were once slaves in Egypt.
Sometimes, however, it feels like an antiquated and boring ritual. People rush through it to get to dinner, and don’t really reflect on what they are reading. The best Seders use the text as the starting point to teach—not only the story but the values that lie beneath the action. It seems directed to children but it has universal application for adults, too.
Passover and Easter help us find that spiritual connection to our past so that it can inform our actions in the future. Memory isn’t just about family get togethers. It’s not just about tradition. It’s about connecting on a deep, somatic level to what truth and justice and compassion are. The lessons of Passover and Easter are not outdated. They’re not just about the foods we eat. They are about how we live our lives, and pass on our values to our children.
• Jennifer Moses is a student rabbi at Congregation Sukkat Shalom in Juneau.
