Many of you who may attend a service or life cycle event at a synagogue may be familiar with the Alvin Fine meditation “Birth Is A Beginning and Death A Destination”. The meditation speaks about our life journey being made in stages, from challenges to victories, a “sacred pilgrimage”. This image of the “sacred pilgrimage” rang true this past week as we found ourselves in the journey we call Passover. Indeed, the Wilderness experience, launched by the Exodus, remains a central metaphor for each of us.
The symbolism of the journey becomes more meaningful as we ourselves grow older. The seder is a powerful symbol of our journey as it reminds us of the questions we have and will ask, the various types of individuals we meet in our own journey as well as the need to tell our own story, in our own way. One thing does become more relevant in this stage of life, and I was reminded of this while sitting at seder this past weekend. As the evening progressed, I kept watching my two grandchildren, ages 13 and 16, and I could not help but wonder as to how many more opportunities I will have to share a seder with them. This Is not to be depressing but is to be mindful of the realities of life and the limits of longevity and of an issue that has become overwhelming: time.
In just about every teaching session we do, this issue emerges as a key item for contemplation and discussion. It is the one thing that, try as we may, we cannot control. Indeed, as we have written here and teach regularly, THE spiritual question for our generation is, I believe, “what do we do with the time we have left, knowing that we cannot control the time we have left”. As we get older, many of us come to realize that we need to make the time we have left “count” for something. Indeed, as Passover ends, the tradition reminds us to “count” the Omer each day and as many of you know, we are urged to “number our days”. Time becomes more precious and thus the choices we make on how we use that time become more meaningful.
This weekend, as the festival ends, we will observe again the tradition of Yizkor. Passover is one of the three major “Pilgrimage festivals, and as such, we observe the memorial moment as Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot close. This idea of memory is very much tied, I suggest, to the issue of time. For so many, as we gather at a seder, we cannot help but recall so many who sat at the table in years past, but who now join us only in spirit. How often we recall them when a dish is served or a reading or story once told by them, is now done by someone new. We remember and are reminded in subtle ways, that this will also be us someday. So, the festival and the rituals and themes that surround them call on us to be mindful of the choices we will be called on to make as we continue our own journey,
We are asked to make choices that sanctify life. (Deuteronomy 30:19) What choices can we make to allow for our “sacred pilgrimage”? Life continues to be the greatest gift that we are given and, as we become more aware of time’s passage and the fact that we cannot control that passage, let us know we continue to have the ability to make choices that enhance life and that help us in our own journey. Passover is often interpreted to be about our own journey from that which enslaves us to our choices to be free from that which binds us, restricts us and holds us back. We are always given the opportunity to choose the sacred and let us not fear to do so before life’s parade passes by.
Shalom
Rabbi Richard F Address
Rabbi Richard F. Address, D.Min, is the Founder and Director of www.jewishsacredaging.com. Rabbi Address served for over three decades on staff of the Union for Reform Judaism; first as a Regional Director and then, beginning in 1997, as Founder and Director of the URJ’s Department of Jewish Family Concerns and served as a specialist and consultant for the North American Reform Movement in the areas of family related programming. Rabbi Address was ordained from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1972 and began his rabbinic career in Los Angeles congregations. He also served as a part time rabbi for Beth Hillel in Carmel, NJ while regional director and, after his URJ tenure, served as senior rabbi of Congregation M’kor Shalom in Cherry Hill, NJ from 2011-2014.
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