David Hartman wrote, “ Passover is the night for reckless dreams, for visions about what a human being can be, what society can be, what history may become.”

This weekend I turned my attention towards our Passover Seder, took all my Hagaddah’s from the bookshelf, brought up the ‘plague masks’ from the basement, and looked at the envelopes of additional readings that we have supplemented over the years. What to do this year? How to honour the Seder with historical context, and modern relevance?

I actually love Pesach. That first breakfast of matzo with Tempte cream cheese is delicious! Taking out precious keepsakes like my mother’s silk, tasseled and embroidered matzo cover, the Seder plate my sister bought me from Israel. Not the cleaning, or shlepping all the dishes upstairs, polishing silver and preparing the house. I am losing more and more interest in this aspect as the years go on. But I do love the idea of our family around the beautifully table set with crystal, silver and glass, integrating blessings and story-telling into an evening laden with wine and good food.

The seed for our focus this year came from my daughter, Jesse, who said that this holiday is about story telling and we should tell of those who have journeyed from oppression to freedom. There are many. Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, The Freedom Writers, the Ethiopian journey to Israel. Some are struggles of ideals, some of territory, and some resonate from the personal turmoil that lies within. But, we are all striving in some way for peace and freedom. Eckhart Tolle teaches, “Liberation can arise from a feeling of connectedness.”

When I am away on vacation and see the moonrise, or the three stars of Orion’s belt, and consider that this is the same moon and the same stars that my children can see, and people all over the world, it is a humbling bond. When I sit at our Passover table, and realize that on this night Jewish families everywhere are gathering around their tables weaving the stories of our exodus from Egypt into our modern perspectives of freedom, hope and dreams, I am again in awe of how we are all connected. Just like the moon and the stars. It’s quite a powerful expression. It makes me feel small, but at the same time relevant. As if what we do, the legacies we create, the stories we recite echo through generations; those “reckless dreams for what we might become.”

**The photograph, One Love, is of Rachel Saffer, published in the Toronto Star on March 23, 1992, The Anit-Racism Rally at Queens Park