Every Passover at my grandparents’ house, I placed a faded Maxwell House Haggadah at each place setting, reserving the Haggadah with a sticker of a sneaker on the front for the head of the table. This Haggadah was my grandfather’s copy, filled with my grandfather’s notes—notes of what to read when, how to perform certain rituals, and, admittedly, what parts to skip over.  This Haggadah contained the secrets to our family practice.  By my first year of college, my grandfather had passed away and my grandmother was sick. My family gathered for Passover that year for the last time and turned to me to lead the seder.  I sat in my grandfather’s big leather armchair and opened the Haggadah with a sticker of a sneaker on the front. I poured over my grandfather’s notes, the slanted, penciled-in script that fills the margins revealing our family secrets one letter at a time.  Leaving no note unread, I led my family precisely through my grandfather’s seder that year.  Even the most mundane of notes—“read this” or “pass the Matzah”—carried the weight of my family’s story and rituals, just as all Jewish sacred texts reveal their true depths to those who seek them. 

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The summer before my senior year of college, I was hospitalized after months of undiagnosed symptoms.  A hospital chaplain, who was a rabbi, came to visit and offered to recite the Mi Shebeirach.  I was not sure how to respond-- I had developed a notion of God who does not interfere in this world. If that were the case, how could God grant me a refuah shleimah, a complete healing, as the prayer implored?  But, wanting to be polite, I gave her my Hebrew name. She chanted the prayer and the words melted away, but the melody washed over and through me.  Suddenly tears streamed down my face.  For the first time since my illness started, I felt a sense of release. In that moment, the space changed and I changed in the space.  I sensed that I was immeasurably small and the room swirled. I felt so incredibly alone in my pain, and at the same time, I felt seen in a way that the doctors did not see me. At the time, I attributed the feelings to simply being overwhelmed and confused.  Now, looking back, I can say strongly that “God was in that place and I did not know it” (Gen 28:16).   God was there, but God did not take away my pain or give me physical strength.  God did not give the doctors the ‘answers’ and God did not prevent me from getting more painful treatments. But in those mere moments in which a rabbi sat at the foot of my bed and recited a prayer, God was present and that presence was transformative-- perhaps even healing in a way I did not know was possible.

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The alarm beeped at 5:00am.  I threw on my comfortable shoes, grabbed my tallit and kippah, and ran out the door to get to the Kotel.  I found my way through security and joined Women of the Wall for the first time, the screaming and whistling already starting.  I opened my WOW siddur and stumbled through the prayers.  A young woman read Torah with the noise and commotion ever increasing at the site of a real Torah scroll.  Anat Hoffman turned to the women gathered and said ‘we need an HUC student!’ Not knowing why, I stepped forward.  ‘Do you know how to do hagbah?’ she asked me. I smiled hesitantly and approached the Torah that was no bigger than my forearm. I unrolled the scroll a little, lifted it into the air, and—the world stopped. I turned slowly, the Torah hoisted above my head for all to see, numbing me to my core.  I could not hear the men shouting over the mechitzah. I could not hear the women shouting ‘hillul HaShem’ and blowing whistles.  I only saw the pure joy on the faces of the women surrounding me, in awe of this little Torah scroll and our ability to read from it at a sacred site.  This was a quintessential Israel moment, combining prayer, protest, history, community, and joy—all of these elements held together in a messy bundle.

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This past year, everything looked different as Passover approached and the pandemic loomed.  My family had changed considerably since the last time we gathered for Passover, a new amalgamation of families with different traditions.  Once again, I found myself tasked with leading a seder.  But this time, my grandfather’s copy of the Maxwell House Haggadah was in a box in my aunt’s basement, unused for several years.  And with family planning to Zoom from three locations, a physical Haggadah was impractical.  With that in mind, I set out to create my own Haggadah from scratch.  I kept the principles of my grandfather’s seder in mind—brevity, clarity, and fun—but used modern language, colorful design, and innovations for a virtual world.  I wish that I could have held that Haggadah with a sticker of a sneaker on the front, but I know that I carry its secrets within me, and that my Haggadah now contains new elements of my family’s stories.  Through the Haggadah-creation process, I felt a deep connection to my past, honored my family’s traditions, and embraced the people and demands of the present, just as we must do with each text study, each pastoral encounter, and each prayer service.