This was the Passover blessing given by my mother last night, back home in California. She sent it to me, and I think it wise and beautiful, and decided to share it here:
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Tonight, right near the location of the biblical Babylonia, in the holiest of lands, there are human beings losing their lives, as though, after thousands of years of history, the lessons of living together still have not been learned. As we are supposed to celebrate and recant tales of ancient hatreds, as we speak of chosen people, of next year in a land that belongs only to us, what happens to the rest of the world, what happens to the dream of a unified world...where all dreams have the right to exist? Where a woman in Baghdad is safe to walk to the market in the morning; where a twenty year old American soldier has the right to be with his young wife and babies, instead of walking down a dusty street with fear in his throat in a land he has never been to before, and fighting for what?
I believe the angels continue to weep in each generation as we sacrifice human life for power and greed. And so, thousands of years later, we continue to wander unmindfully in the desert, following leaders who cannot lead. We walk around the same golden calf, only this time we call it oil.
All people are chosen people, the potential for forgiveness and loving-kindness and compassion is the promise of each generation, and the promised land which is this state of mind, is always within grasp. The promised land exists for all people, and it belongs to everyone. The promised land is not a place, it is a time of peace that we cannot reach because still cannot walk with one another on higher ground.
And so this passover, at this seder, it appears to me, that we are still in the wilderness, still bickering, still unmindful, still suffering because of our own corruptions. G-d gave us the ten commandments. but until we live by them, we continue to be wanderers in the desert. All of us. Miracles are all around us, the manna continues to fall on us just for the asking, the hills are still green and spring will still come, but the ice is melting, the days grow warmer, the hurricanes come. There is still time to honor the rainbow....Hashem continues to wait and watch. He gives us another chance, another season in which to redeem ourselves. May the strife end, may we hammer our swords into plowshares and find our way to the promised land.
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Amen.
