Free To Choose

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Originally delivered at Temple Israel of Great Neck on the Eighth Day of Passover, April 14, 2012

For all of us who have tried, unsuccessfully, to mop up our remaining soup or gravy with a piece of matzah – have no fear.  Challah, or perhaps a nice crusty piece of sourdough bread, is on the way. 

Looking back on the week, we can recall all the times that we spoke, sang, dipped and ate.  Maybe we had to do a little political negotiation with family and friends at the seder – wouldn’t be the first time.

But what do we really carry with us when the holiday is over?

I want us to focus on the idea of responsibility.

If there’s one concept I want us to digest fully, it’s the notion that our choices and our actions have more profound consequences than we tend to imagine.

I actually believe this is the most important message of Passover.  We might say, “No, the most important message is that God saves us!”  But I disagree.  I believe that God’s saving power may be the loudest message of Passover.  But it’s not the most important.

The second movement of Beethoven’s 7^th symphony has two melodies, one loud and insistent; the other, soft and enchanting.

Talk Ain't Cheap - of Tarof and Seichel

I’ve told this story before but I’m going to tell it again.  If our people can tell the story of leaving Egypt again and again, I can tell this story twice.

Shabbat morning, circa 1980.  My parents were getting ready for shul.  My mother came downstairs all ready and said to my father, who was eating breakfast, “what do you think about my new outfit?” 

He had been eating a piece of pastry, a babka, I think, and he took a minute to swallow before he answered.  Or at least that’s how I remember it, but my mother didn’t quite look at it that way. 

“I guess you don’t like it,” she said. 

“Of course I like it.  Whatever you wear, you look beautiful.”

“What do you mean, whatever I wear, I look beautiful?  So I guess you don’t like the outfit.  Just say it.”

And my father sat there, trying to digest the pastry and the conversation that didn’t go quite the way he wanted.

(Post script - I’m pretty sure they were both fine by the time they got to shul.)

I want to devote my comments to the importance and utter complexity of how we talk to each other.