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I received my copy of Mishkan HaSeder, the new CCAR Press Passover Haggadah, in the mail this week. Like countless others, the Baskin-illustrated CCAR Haggadah - published in 1974 - helped shape our family’s Passover Seders for decades. After almost 50 years, though, it was definitely time for a new text.  Like other publications in the “Mishkan series” that we have already use for many years at Temple Sinai (e.g. Mishkan Tefilah, Mishkan HaNefesh), Mishkan HaSeder similarly includes both the traditional text and translation as well as a rich collection of poetry, works chosen to complement, accentuate, and occasionally even challenge the traditional narrative.  

I did not get past the first page without being drawn in by one of the poetic selections:

Optimism  (by Jane Hirshfield)
More and more I have come to admire resilience.
Not the simple resistance of a pillow, whose foam
returns over and over to the same shape, but the sinuous
tenacity of a tree: finding the light newly blocked on one side,
it turns in another. A blind intelligence, true.
But out of such persistence arose turtles, rivers,
mitochondria, figs – all this resinous, unretractable earth.

Resilience is certainly an apt word to characterize our community this past year, as the realities and limitations wrought by the pandemic required us to pivot in every realm of congregational life in order to find new light and continue to thrive. The “Resilience Niggun” which Beth Schafer wrote for our congregation provides a musical reminder of all that we continue to overcome each time it is sung during Shabbat evening services.  Resilience, though, is an equally fitting term to use when looking back upon the pages of Jewish history, where we are reminded time and again of the ways our people adapted, persevered, and ultimately rose above every impediment to new strengths and expressions of community. 

The concept of resilience has also been front of mind during this month dedicated to Jewish Disability Awareness and Inclusion. As we strive to raise awareness and increase sensitivity through educational and experiential programs** and try to inculcate the Jewish values of acceptance and inclusion, I am genuinely awestruck when even trying to imagine the staggering level of resilience and persistence that individuals who live with disabilities have to muster each and every day to navigate through a world – including our Jewish communities – which repeatedly fail to embody the ideals of acceptance we teach.  Perhaps, when we sing our Resilience Niggun in the weeks and months to come, we will not only consider the personal ways we have continued to rise above Covid-imposed impediments and persevered, but also consider the ways we inadvertently erect those impediments for others. Recognizing as much, may the lessons of acceptance and inclusion finally take root and blossom within each soul and throughout our entire community.

** Please join us this Shabbat evening as Nick May joins with Rabbi Sam and Cantor Beth to lead music during services, and afterward, engages our community in conversation.