Passover is a holiday that beckons us to move into the future. We are to leave Egypt behind and journey to a Promised Land. We are to pass over a sea of obstacles filled with the broken chariots of the past, which may have once carried us but are no longer capable of taking us into a rapidly changing future.  The way ahead seems even more uncertain these days, with the pandemic only one of the disruptions that we have faced. This year, even more acutely, the Seder, with its ritual meal of matzah and bitter herbs, demands to know why this Passover night is different from all other nights?
      We only need to look around the table to see a vastly different world from that of our grandparents. It is an increasingly diverse group of people as we want to live in a world that is inclusive. The Seder itself announces this desire at the start “This is the bread of affliction…let all who are in need come celebrate Passover with us.” We begin the night opening our home to everyone. The Seder is about opening doors to freedom and extending outstretched arms to those who need a hand to help get up off the ground. Toward the end of the Seder, we open the door to Elijah representing the hope for a better tomorrow.
     A few years ago at our Seder, I abandoned the traditional text and asked people, many of who didn’t know each other, to reflect on what freedom meant to them.  One guest introduced herself simply as Kathy and told us that freedom meant something special to her after recently being released from prison. The tone in the room changed as Kathy Boudin spoke about the Brink’s robbery that led to her twenty-two-year incarceration. She spoke about restorative justice. She spoke about how everyone in prison encourages you to feel innocent. It was only when she began to accept responsibility for what she had done, that she could begin the process of remorse which she said is a process without an end. That Seder remains one of the most powerful of my life.
     Most people don’t have a story like Kathy Boudin but we each have a story that includes moments of freedom and oppression, both of ourselves and others. Her story made me understand the most difficult text at the Seder, that of the four children. I was struck by the idea that all of these children are at the Seder—the wise, the wicked, the simple and the one who doesn’t know how to ask, and each of us is all of them as well. Many of us at times think of ourselves as the wicked child; many of us feel we don’t even know the right way to ask the questions.  But the truth is that we are all more alike than we think.  We know a lot and a little; we are hesitant and we are silent. The Seder invites us to bring it all to the table, demanding only this: that we see ourselves as part of the story of an enslaved people who were finally free. That freedom comes with the responsibility to work to preserve it and extend it, to break down the barriers that keep us apart, and free us from being stuck in the narrow places of our lives.
     We are the descendants of Abraham and Sarah, the first immigrants in the world. We are to remember what it means to be strangers so that we won’t forget to take care of those on the margins of society. Passover reminds us that we were once free and can be again. Only then, will we say with a full heart, dayenu—it is more than enough. Then this night will truly be different from all other nights.