This Night so SIMILAR to Other Nights

Why is this night so different from other nights? Jews will ask as we begin Pesach. This phrase is front and center of the celebration.

But what makes this night important is not that it is different, but that it is so similar to other nights... To all of the Passover celebrations for the past 3000 years.

Because we, the Jews of the world, are going to sit at our tables with our families, some with right-wing opinions, others with left-wing opinions; some of us religious, others secular; some who eat rice, others who eat potatoes.

We will repeat the same prayers. All of us. Not praising G-d, as in the rest of the jewish festivities, but repeating the story of how we became a people. How we went from being individual Israelites to being the People of Israel.

We are going to tell the same story as we have done, in good years and in bad years, for 3000 years. Not because we don't know the plot, but because it is in repetition that we find cohesion.

And in cohesion we find strength.

And in our strength lies the permanence of the Jewish people.

And tonight, just like all the others Pesach nights, we are going to sit at the table and see last year's children become teenagers, and teenagers become couples, and couples become families.

And we are going to see the empty chairs. With those absences so present. And we will hold back the tears…or not.

And we will eat too much and promise (as we did last year and the one before) that next year we will not eat as much.

And we will say, as we have for 3000 years, ha shaná ha vaa be yerushalaim (next year in Jerusalem), because although we are physically in our homes anywhere in the world, for Jews Jerusalem is a state of mind.

And we will teach our children, and our children's children, not only about the liberation from Egypt, but also about the responsibility that comes with having been slaves and, today, being free men and women.

And we will go to sleep that night, just like every night, remembering the pride of being Jewish. -Adina Chelminsky