Reprinted without permission | How to tell this story

Author: Rabbi Steve Cohen, Congregation B’nai B’rith, Santa Barbara CA 

Friday night, March 27 2020 

Shabbat Shalom everyone. Passover is coming. In less than two weeks, Jews all over the world will retell our ancient story of one endless night over three thousand years ago, during which the Angel of Death moved through the land, and we sheltered in place. Huddled in our homes, with a mark of blood smeared on our doorposts, praying for protection, and for our lives, and the lives of our parents and our children. This year the old Passover story, out of our distant past, is suddenly speaking directly to us. Not only to us, the Jewish people, but to all of us, the entire Human Family. We all understand that right now we are living through the great story of our time.

After this is over, the world will not be the same. Like the Jews huddled in their homes on the terrible night of the 10th plague, we have no idea how long it will last, or how it will end. But we do know that there will be a time, years from now, when people will tell the story of the Pandemic of 2020. Tonight I want to send a message to the future, to the storytellers of the future…a message from all of us here in the middle of the story.

First of all, when you tell this story years from now, make sure to mention the parents of little children, all over the globe. Parents grappling with their own fears and insecurities. Parents digging deep within themselves to find honest words of courage and comfort to say to their kids, as they put them to bed at night. 

Also, you storytellers of the future, let your story include our elderly, who have worked hard all their lives, and were hoping and planning to live out their final years quietly and in peace. Many of our elders are stuck alone in their rooms in retirement homes or nursing homes, wondering when they will see their friends or their children again. Let future generations know that the Angel of Death went out across the entire globe during February, and March, and April, and May in the year 2020, and descended upon our elders when they were all alone.

When you tell that story, please remember the home health aides, and the cleaning workers, and the food delivery men and women who provide a lifeline for our seniors to the outside world. And do not forget to mention the high school students and college students, our beautiful young people, who stood up and revealed themselves to us as full adults during this pandemic. How they rallied and organized themselves to bring food and supplies, to those forced to remain inside.

If you are telling the story of this pandemic years from now, do not leave out the homeless men and women, who even before the coronavirus were already living outside. Hungry and cold. And now they have lost the tiny shred of social safety net that was keeping them alive. Tell that part of the story in a quiet voce, because of the shame we feel every time we walk past a fellow human being, left out in the cold. But then raise your voice loudly, to tell the story of two women from this congregation, Amy and Kira, who gathered bags of supplies and sandwiches from Subway, and while exercising extreme caution in social distancing managed to bring a meal the day before yesterday to thirty people in Pershing Park, and then walked by the train station, and to the harbor, and continued to give food and gift cards to the destitute men and women sleeping on sidewalks and in the park. 

Perhaps one Passover night, thirty years from now, or fifty years from now, or one hundred years from now, you will raise the matzah at the start of the seder and proclaim “This is the bread of affliction that our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt….let all who are hungry come and eat.”

When you recite those words, you might add to those seated at your table: 

“In fact it happened during the Pandemic of 2020, that as the world economy shut down, millions of good, steady jobs disappeared overnight, all over the globe, and hardworking responsible men and women found themselves without money to feed their families. It can happen to anyone. It did happen that year.”

Let the matzah of your seder remind you of our time, when the entire Human Family felt deeply insecure, and nevertheless, many came forward, in every land and also here in Santa Barbara, to donate money and food, to cook and to deliver, to call and check in, to assist and to encourage their friends, their neighbors, and complete strangers. 

Finally, when you tell the story of this Pandemic….whoever you are, and in whatever year in the distant future you are living….please make sure to tell the praises of our health care workers. In fact, tell that part of the story in song. With music! Because words alone cannot capture the quality of heroism that we are seeing manifested every day in the Emergency rooms, the waiting rooms and the Intensive Care Units. The nurses, doctors, technicians, prehospital first responders…the police and the firefighters and the emergency medical technicians. When you come to tell the story of our world turned upside down, sing songs about these medical women and men. 

Will you tell it, was it recorded and was it remembered, that in cities around the world, in Spain, in Israel, in Seattle, in India, people went out on their balconies at 8:00 pm every night and made noise….cheering and clapping and banging on pots and pans…all in honor of the healthcare workers? That should be part of your Passover seder, whoever you are, telling this story years from now. Sing songs and bang pots in honor of our healthcare heroes!

But when you do, remember that these were ordinary people, responding to extraordinary times. These health care workers….in China, in Italy, in Spain, in New York City, in Los Angeles, in Ventura, in Santa Barbara. They are our friends and family. They are just like us. They have not been miraculously transformed into comic book super-heroes. They are thinking all the same thoughts and feeling exactly the feelings that we would if we were in their place. They are afraid. They are exhausted. They are torn between their responsibilities to their families and their sacred responsibility to their patients. And they are going into work, often with inadequate protective clothing and equipment. Too many are becoming infected, and too many of them are dying…because they are providing care, and working hand in hand with the Kadosh Baruch Hu, the Holy One Blessed be He, as God’s partners, bringing healing to the sick. Make sure that the song you sing makes it clear that they were ordinary women and men, risking their health and their lives, to save and to protect all of us. That’s my message to the storytellers of the future, who will one day seek to convey some of the terror and some of the hidden holiness of the time we are living through right now. I hope that it reaches you…out there in the unknown future.