Being In Mitzrayim (Narrowness)—A Passover Reflection

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Passover is coming and as usual I sit down to write my reflection about the Jewish holidays. 

Passover is all about freedom, about leaving the narrow places behind, about celebrating leaving slavery, it is about autonomy and choice. Or at least that is how I used to celebrate for years and what we were taught it is all about. 

A chosen family member of mine is going to be celebrating her first Passover Seder in a prison. She works for the governor of a state. One of her colleagues invited her to the seder in the prison, and she said yes. 

Many years ago, I volunteered for a reparative justice organization in a prison. When she told me she was heading into the prison, I could feel it viscerally. The taking off all the jewelry, watch, and leaving all my personal belongings in a locker outside. The clanging of the doors, the intense fear that is permeable everywhere.

How does one celebrate the Passover Seder behind bars?

How does one bring meaning and creativity in a place where one is not free?

As I have been thinking about prison more and more, I have begun expanding this question for myself.

How do we celebrate Passover when so many are being held in camps in the U.S.? When so many families are being torn apart? When children are being kept in captivity in our own backyards? When our government is denying basic rights and due process to so so many?

And beyond our own borders—how do we celebrate when bombs are exploding and killing Iranies, Israelis, and Palestinians? How do we celebrate when the war on Ukraine is still going on? How do we celebrate when the Earth is suffering and greed is fueling so much of what is being inflicted onto humans and the planet?

I recently listened to a d’var torah from Rabbi Sharon Brous where she asks us to not allow the need for cognitive closure to harden our hearts.

She explains cognitive closure:

“When the reality of the world becomes too complex, too violent, too contradictory, we face a spiritual and cognitive overload, which the human brain experiences as a threat. In order to survive we activate a psychological survival mechanism that is called the reductive bypass. In which we trade accuracy for safety or the perception of safety. There is a psychologist named Arie Kruglanski from the University of Maryland who writes about radicalization and extremism. He describes the human need for an answer, on a given topic, any answer to end ambiguity and confusion. He calls it the need for cognitive closure, NFCC. When we, under high stress, like war, seize upon an interpretation that seems to make sense. Maybe it came from someone we like, or trust, or otherwise align with. And then our minds freeze, against any conflicting information. Now, this gives us as human beings a kind of biological advantage, because even a wrong simple answer will lower our cortisol levels and therefore our distress.”

She continues, “Though we may still be hurting and grieving and full of rage. We have traded the added pain of moral confusion and instead taken on moral righteousness, moral certainty which is a balm for the soul.” 

This statement about reductive bypass and the need for cognitive closure explains a lot of what is happening in the world right now. The conversations many are refusing to have and the certainly in which people are speaking about many topics they don’t fully understand.   

When we allow ourselves to feel our own pain, the pain of those we love, the pain of those we agree with, AND the pain of those who have hurt us, emotions can be overwhelming. The pain, the hurt, the sorrow, the grief, and the staying in the reality that ALL of humanity, sentient beings along with trees and plants and bugs are created in divinity and deserve our care and compassion can overwhelm us. 

I know for myself, and for many of us, when we feel too much, our system can become overwhelmed and we find ourselves shrinking around the enormity of it. 

I wonder about being in this shrinking, this overwhelm, the narrowness (mitzrayim), the confusion, the pain, the desire for an easy answer, any answer, and to stay in the question and the brokenness of what is unfolding in front of us. 

What if we sat down at the Seder and shared with one another about the pain we are each holding individually. And then ask one another.

What is it like to sit here celebrating when so many are not free?

What is it like to be in pain?

What would it take for us to hold this pain together, all of it, and as we sit down at the Seder to truly, truly hold it all?

Chag Sameach (Happy Holiday).

May this Passover truly bring us to a place where all humans are free, autonomous, and have the ability to live a life of their choosing.