EVEN IN WHAT SEEMS TO US A TIME OF UTTER HOPELESSNESS, WHERE WE CANNOT SEE LIGHT ON THE HORIZON, NONETHELESS HOPE CAN COME TO US IN A FLASH, LIKE A BOLT OF LIGHTNING, SEEMINGLY FROM NOWHERE.
Each morning, right before I wake up, I have the same dream. In the dream, I wake up. I turn on the radio, hear the traffic report – there is more congestion than usual, and the stock market report – the Dow Jones is up. I head to the synagogue for minyan and everyone shakes hands as we enter and sit side by side. I go to the store, out to lunch, everywhere I see people. We are standing close, shaking hands, sometimes hugging.
Then my eyes open for real. I look over to the side of my bed and I see my mask and sanitizer sitting on the night table. I go into the kitchen and open the refrigerator. My go to for breakfast is Greek yogurt, but it is not there. We have not gone to the grocery store for a few days. It does not feel safe. I make a cup of coffee and open the New York Times on my phone. Nearly every single article is about the coronavirus. I switch to the Washington Post, the Plain Dealer, the Jerusalem Post and the Times of Israel. Covid-19 is everywhere, and the reality of our predicament comes crashing down on my head. Its as if I had just learned of the pandemic in that moment – that moment that repeats every single morning, kind of like Groundhog Day, only so much worse.
No matter how hard we try, we cannot shield ourselves from this crisis and pretend that this is a normal state of being. There is nothing normal in our lives anymore. We live in fear of an enemy so small we cannot even see it, and so we see it everywhere, forever anxious about the possibility of contracting it. We are worried that it will strike down someone we love who we know is especially vulnerable. We grieve over the loss of intimate social contact that is so vital to us. We grieve over the loss of feeling healthy and protected. We grieve over the loss of routines that provided comfort by allowing us to know what to expect. Now we have no idea what to expect, no understanding of what the future holds for us. We have lost any sense of security and all sense of control. We feel hopeless.
We have been here before. Our ancestors in Egypt would have understood the fear, anxiety and depression that we feel. They would know what it feels like to not be in control of your own life, to be constantly afraid, to not know what tomorrow will bring, to taste the bread of hopelessness.
The bread of hopelessness. Matzah. It is what the Israelites ate while in bondage. It was all they had time to make because they were forced to turn over all their time to the demands of their masters. Rabbi Aryeh Ben David describes the taste of hopelessness: “It’s the taste of matza. Dry, parched, stuck-in-your-throat kind of feeling.”
He asks: “Did they actually eat matza? Or did all their food become utterly tasteless because of their hopelessness? When there is no hope at all, then everything becomes parched and dry. Like feeding a corpse.” And he observes, “What is the point of eating when condemned to slavery? Slavery decimates our bodies; hopelessness decimates our souls.”
The message of Passover is that even in what seems to us a time of utter hopelessness, where we cannot see light on the horizon, nonetheless hope can come to us in a flash, like a bolt of lightning, seemingly from nowhere.
The Hebrew word for “in the flash of a moment,” is chee-pahzohn. We are told that our ancestors left Egypt b’chee-pahzohn, in a flash. Why does the Torah use that word? The truth is that though they were told they were leaving in the middle of the night; they did not actually leave until the middle of the next day. We like to say they left in such a hurry there was no time for their bread to rise. In reality, they had time to gather their belongings. It’s not that they left in a flash. Rather, it is that in a flash, the light on the horizon of their lives became visible to them. In an instant, they went from utter despair to unbridled hope.
This, says Rabbi Ben David, is the mystery of the Matzah, which is at once the bread of despair and the bread of hope. It is the overriding message of Passover: “Even though we believe that a situation is utterly unsolvable, bereft of hope, and not even worth praying about, nevertheless, somehow, in a flash of a moment hope can reappear.”
The Jewish people have experienced many times in our history when we thought all hope was extinguished. Yet, as we say at our seders when we read the Haggadah, “in very generation, The Holy One, Blessed be He, saves us.”
As we celebrate Passover this year, may the Matzah remind us not to lose hope, but to trust that God is our comfort and the source of our strength and will help us through this crisis to arrive at better days, days filled with blessings, laughter and joy.
As the psalmist wrote: All who hope in Adonai, strengthen yourselves, and God will give your heart courage. (31:25) O Israel, wait for Adonai, for Adonai is filled with steadfast love and the power to redeem. (130:7).