Ominous- A Passover Reflection

I've been consumed with taxes and now Passover, so while I've been thinking about a series of posts, there has been no time to write one. But today, while eating my heart-healthy oats, I watched the video below. Frankly, it scared me to death ...not a good way to start a day of cooking for my favorite holiday.

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So, what does this have to do with Passover?

Passover celebrates freedom, rebirth, the strength we gained by facing adversity as a community. It is a story of perserverence...40 years of wandering the desert, trying to find our purpose and a philosophy that could guide a community of souls. The story starts with our journey to Egypt, looking for a place to farm and survive. Little did we know that slavery awaited us. In time, we were led out of slavery by a quiet man who mobilized us to flee in search of a life of freedom...and responsibility as well (remember those Ten Commandments we picked up along the way?). There are many lessons to be learned around the Seder table and I love exploring all of them.

Passover always falls close to the celebration of Earth Day...a reminder of our obligation to provide stewardship over the planet G-d entrusted to us. We are betraying that trust. We cannot be free, or strong, or worthy of G-d's faith in us if we continue to care more about our material life than we do about the future of humanity as a species. The Earth is melting. Literally. And it's melting fast...far faster than anyone anticipated. It seems that each month we hear about revised estimates to doom. It terrifies me. Using the human body as an analogy, I know only too well how quickly biological systems can shift, shut down, run amok ...with rapid death ensuing. One minute, the clinicians think there is time enough... and the next minute they are calling time of death. We are lousy at realistic projections of calamity in part because our understanding is limited and in part because the denial gene is so powerful. But systems march on, oblivious to our human flaws, living out their own destiny.

This Passover, I pray that all humanity wakes up. Fast. We cannot arm-wrestle over the wisdom of cap-and-trade, limits on emissions, shutting down coal-fired plants. We cannot sustain our current lifestyles. Period.

I'm not sure that we are smart enough, or wise enough, or courageous enough. But I pray, nonetheless.