Last night was the first night of Pesach (Passover). Instead of celebrating it with most of the kibbutz in the dining room, we - and everyone else in Israel - was forced to 'celebrate' with 'whoever lives in the flat'. Normally families congregate to celebrate Passover - grandparents, aunts and uncles, sons and daughters - which means that all the roads in the country are always crowded from about 6 pm until midnight.
Not last night. Israel is currently in the middle of a four day complete lock-down; towns are barricaded and the police will stop anyone fool hardy enough to travel on a road. The authorities fear that allowing multi-generational celebrations will destroy all the advances that have been made in the past few weeks with regard to minimising the number of Corona infections.
Back to the kibbutz: every year is posted a seating plan in the entrance to the dining room so that everyone knows where to sit. Yesterday evening some wag sent a message to our internal on-line forum with a map of the kibbutz and each family's location and number of people.
Above is a picture of me reading the blessing for the first of the four cups of wine that are traditionally drunk during the celebration. I don't know whether last night was the worst Seder which I have ever attended: about five years ago we were invited to the parents of my wife's brother's wife and that was an experience that I have no desire to repeat. I wrote here about this festival over the years; it is probably my favourite festival. Not so this year.
One of the major statements of the Seder is 'yesterday we were slaves [in Egypt], today we are free men'. On this basis, someone created the blessing shown on the left. Following a swift translation into English, it says
[Wishing you] A kosher and happy Pesach, in which we will move
- From darkness to light
- From slavery to freedom
- From Corona to health
- From unpaid leave to employment
- From blind hatred to love
I couldn't agree more.
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