Opening Doors: A Special Passover Appeal to the Younger Generation

 

In keeping with the speech that President Obama delivered recently in Jerusalem, addressed to the younger generation of Israelis, I want to speak in particular to the younger generation here.  If you are young enough that your whole life unfolded since the advent of the Internet, please listen carefully.  (And everyone else can listen, too.)

I want to emphasize the importance of opening doors.  Toward the end of the Seder, following the meal, we pour a cup for Elijah and we open the door to our homes.

We connect the two customs today; however, they emerged at different times, for different reasons.

The pouring of a cup for Elijah is an early modern custom – as Elijah is associated with redemption, the “fifth cup,” connected with redemption, became known as the Cup of Elijah.

How about the custom of opening the door?  That custom precedes the Cup of Elijah by several centuries.

Rabbi David Silber offers that it may have been a way to emphasize the imperative to invite all who are hungry to eat; it may also have been a way to invite everyone to praise God during Hallel.

Opening a door requires risk.  At the very least, you throw off the carefully controlled temperature inside. 

And who knows who may come in if you open the door and how it might change the dynamics within?

But since we’ve been opening doors for at least 10 centuries, maybe there’s something to it.  Something to the balance between risk and hope that opening a door represents.

So if you’re young enough that you don’t think that “retweet” is someone saying the word “retreat” with a speech impediment, I’m about to ask you to consider opening some doors.

First, I want you to consider opening a door to people whose lives are challenged in ways that you can only imagine. 

It’s one thing to worry about who your friends are, which college will accept you, whether you’ll find a paid or unpaid internship, if and how you will find the person with whom you want to share your life.

But we all know that there are people who worry where their next meal will come from, people who struggle with mental and physical challenges that never go away and may well get more difficult over time.

Last Thursday night, some Temple Israel teens welcomed a group of residents from the Group Home on Old Mill Road to share a Seder experience with us.  We had hosted most of the people on Simhat Torah, so we reacquainted ourselves at the Seder.  The residents have a variety of physical and cognitive challenges.

Again, our students welcomed our guests graciously and naturally and I think everyone enjoyed the evening.

Our students who traveled to Long Beach to provide relief from Hurricane Sandy saw families across the socioeconomic spectrum whose lives were turned upside down in a single day.

We certainly don’t understand why people are challenged in different ways, but I like to think that opening the door to people we may not be so likely to spend time with has an impact that can’t be measured. 

It just may be that the next time that our students find themselves juggling grades and extracurriculars, they will feel a little different about their own gifts, their own insecurities and their own responsibilities. 

You never know what can happen when you open a door. 

Second, I want to encourage you at every stage of your life to open the door to the beauty and power of Jewish tradition. 

Many important things in life fluctuate and so does the way we each relate to our heritage.  It is unlikely that anyone will maintain the same level of passion about being Jewish across an entire lifespan. 

So I ask you to keep the door open at every phase of your life.  For example you may find one day, if you haven’t already, that it’s really satisfying to teach your college roommate how to make potato latkes for Hanukkah or gondi for Shabbat or matzah brei for Passover.  Something that you took for granted growing up in Great Neck all of a sudden is an opportunity for you to bring a spark of your unique heritage, literally, to the table – because while you’re cooking, you’re answering questions about Hanukkah and Shabbat and Passover.  And now you’re no longer the bemused or even bored participant, you’re the emissary.  All of a sudden, you have to represent your people with accuracy and appropriate pride.

And you can.  And you can bring your Jewish spark to your friends and romantic partners.  And you can determine how to advocate for Israel in ways that feel right to you.  And if you need a refresher or a consult, give a shout-out to us.  We’ll help you. 

There’s a beautiful Broadway musical playing now called Once about a couple that falls in love but faces challenges, and the challenges don’t fully subside.  It isn’t happily ever after in the classic Broadway tradition but the story in touching and feels quite real.

A pivotal song in the show, also a movie, is titled “Falling Slowly,” sung by the couple in acknowledgment of their limitations but also their capacity to affirm one another.

It begins with sweet harmony, progresses to some discord and dissonance, and while it ends with the same harmony as it began, somehow it’s different.  The discord of the middle makes the sweetness of the beginning impossible to recreate exactly as it was.

Shabbat.  Hanukkah.  Passover.  The sweetness and the significance of those celebrations are all yours. As you grow, and as the clamor of your life increases, you’ll come back to them and they’ll be the same in some ways but also different.  And that’s OK.  We’re supposed to sing “Shira Hadasha,” a new song.  We’re supposed to grow and come back and grow some more and come back again, all the while bringing new insight to the table. 

That’s also true, by the way, of the exalted challenge of living each “regular” day as a Jew.  Truth be told, there are no regular days for a Jew.  Each day is an opportunity to give thanks and to do something that makes a real difference.

The Jewish version of the Broadway song, by the way, isn’t “Falling Slowly.”  It’s rising slowly.  That’s an important distinction.  Don’t let the matzah fool you.  We’re expected to rise, a little bit at a time. 

Jokes notwithstanding, we’re actually quite an optimistic bunch.  Every Hanukkah we increase the light, every Shabbat we imagine what the “World to Come” might be like, every Passover we make the journey from slavery to freedom and consider our obligation to bring others along.

There’s a High School teacher in New Jersey named Evan Robbins who has has done more than consider.  He has made several trips to a fishing village in Africa to negotiate the release of child slaves.  He's a Jew who, as described in the Jewish Week, attends Conservative Synagogue Agudath Israel of Caldwell.

Rising slowly and bringing others with us. That’s our song, if we open doors and keep them open.

One final thing.  I can’t ask you to open doors unless I set an example.

And there’s no age range whatsoever on this part.

For conversation and support, my door is open.

It’s open if things are going well for you and it’s open if things are falling apart.

It’s open regardless of who you’re dating or if you’re not dating at all.

It’s open if you landed a great job or you’re unemployed.

It’s open regardless of your sexual orientation or gender identity.

It’s open if you just won a prize and it’s open if you’re in serious trouble. 

It’s open if you think you are totally losing it.

It’s open regardless of your level of Jewish observance and where you faith is at the time. 

Why did the first Jew open the door at the Seder 1000 years ago?  We’re not likely to know for sure.

But over the years, that gesture has come to signify a willingness to welcome, even if it means taking a risk.

To engage even those people who may make us uncomfortable.

To return again and again to a tradition that brings light and meaning to our lives and to the world and to share that tradition with others.

To rise up and to lift others up.

Who knew, centuries ago, that one day “l’dor vador” would offer such an awesome play on words in a country that has given us so much freedom.  One door after another, one generation to the next.

Each worthy door that we open keeps us going and growing, from one generation to the next.  So I ask you, and the people who love you, to open these doors and to keep them open.  Who knows?  Elijah himself might be waiting.