A Passover Sacrifice & Metzora

I know I’m not the only one more than a little concerned about my Passover seder this year.

What with the political situation, namely Israel and Gaza, and the differing opinions within my family, I’m a bit worried about how that’s going to go down.

Usually at Passover, we bring in current events or political situations happening in the world.

What else, after all, is the use of Passover except to apply the idea of enslavement, oppression, and freedom to today’s world.

After all, according to the Haggadah, the book we use for suggested readings—and to remind us of “the order” (the seder)—we are to relive the experience of slavery as if we, too, were once slaves.

We are to imagine what freedom feels like to us, personally.

For people in Israel and Gaza, living a feeling of oppression, or entrapment at the very least, is very real.

I keep hearing that for Israelis, it’s as if it’s still October 8th in terms of the felt trauma.

Many are still wondering if their captive relatives and friends are even alive.

For Gazans, well…

So how do we come away from our seder this year without having caused upset or anger at the very least.

Or a full-blown fight?

Do we avoid it altogether in order to keep the peace, and pretend not to see the Elephant in the Room?

Or are there ways to talk about it without talking about it?

For some fascinating—and very helpful—thoughts on this, I happened listen to Chutzpod.

Every episode of Chutzpod addresses a listener who has written in with a challenging question, and the hosts seek to answer it.

I highly recommend it to you in general, but especially this episode—

—if you’re worried about the same thing as I am—and I imagine I’m not alone!

It’s all about how we talk, and how we go about discussing difficult things.

Now for this week’s Parsha as we get ready for difficult discussions.

As I said last week, metzora, often incorrectly translated as leprosy, can be found on the walls of a house.

It shows up again in this week’s Parsha.

I remind you that the ancient rabbis thought of it as a spiritual malady.

To take that even further, they thought of it as a miraculous physical manifestation of lashon hara (I credit Rabbi Jonathan Sacks for this reminder this week).

Lashon hara, or evil tongue, is gossip, or speaking about another person in a way that could damage their reputation.

Because with words, God created the world.

With words, worlds are created.

Or worlds are destroyed.

The Parsha describes scrubbing the walls of a house to rid itself of metzora.

I imagine the mouth as a house for the tongue and the old-fashioned punishment for cursing of washing a child’s out with soap.

Or scraping the tongue, which is good for one’s health in general.

I wonder if we can all go into Passover this year being especially mindful of our words.

Because with words, the world is created.

And the opposite.

Because on Passover, we’re supposed to sacrifice a lamb, not our family.

And can we say Amen?

And a happy Passover to all.