Happy April. In the Jewish calendar it’s the month of Nisan in which we celebrate Passover. How do JFS’ core values of Being Resolute, Being Purpose Built, and Being a Mensch reflect the Jewish holiday? The story we share every year is of our walk to freedom from enslavement the narrow place called Mitzrayim.
Lately have you felt squeezed? Are things tight so that you can hardly breathe? Are you concerned with the intense uncertainty blanketing our world?
Imagine.
You are in an underground watery cave. The current pushes you through a narrow passageway. You rise into a channel. You are floating on your back. Take some breaths. The canal moves you forward, lifts you, and lowers you through locks that push you along. Eventually you come to open waters and space that holds freedom and wonder.
Narrow places exist in all our lives, regardless of religious faith or none. It’s how we manage our way through the narrow places and times that our resilience and our wounds shine through. There may be tears. We may say “Goodbye,” to those we care about and love, partnered with, trusted, and seen the Divine in. The Israelites didn’t know the outcome of their journey, their faith flagging at times. In the desert for forty years, the story goes, we experienced Revelation, learned, argued, fought, created a special place for the Divine to dwell among us and within us, and designed a society based upon justice. During those years we grew, died, were birthed, tested our limits, and the Divine’s faith in us.
Whatever our cultures and faith beliefs, may we draw strength from one another, continuing to respond in an understanding and compassionate way to those we serve during our rebirth. May we survive the struggle of the storm of pain in the birthing process as something in us dies, as with the 10th plague and death of the first born, during the story leading to our freedom journey. May each of our new beginnings draw us closer to supporting one another on our march to calmer places of open waters and possibilities.
-Rabbi Yonina
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