Welcome Mats & No Soliciting Signs: A Passover Prayer

The debutant spring came out this week. The belle of the ball swept into Madison on Monday, and with her a bouquet of stomach virus plaguing our home. Then, a knock at our door. Make that several knocks.

Despite the “no soliciting” sign above our doorbell, once the snow melts window sellers, house-painters, and fund-raisers come knocking. In fairness, our stoop offers both a welcome mat and a no soliciting sign, because intermarriage. I think I hear Solicitor Brisket knocking from the fridge right now, yelling for me to get off the computer and prepare tonight’s Seder (and offering me a trial of free lawn-care, WTF?)

A human bearing boxed baked goods knocked yesterday; not an industrious girl scout peddling Thin Mints to celebrate winter’s end, but a kind Orthodox man with a gift of unleavened bread. For Passover is coming, and both the angel of death and the Kookaburra shall passover our home, so that we may survive another year and become svelte Keepers of the Matzah!

On Passover we say Next Year in Jerusalem, Next Year may all be free. For most diaspora Jews a return to Jerusalem serves more as metaphor or idyll, and freedom from shackles as a fervent hope on behalf of those enslaved in distant lands–that freedom a given for those reclining around the Seder table.

This year I pray not just for freedom afar, but in my own neighborhood and in my own community– freedom from poverty, oppression, racism, and stigma, and the slavery of inequity, incarceration and violence. Freedom from structural racism and white supremacist thinking and actions too.

I pray for the courage and wisdom to make my own welcome mat more intentional and less cursory. Also, less a place from which to yell at my children and especially Husband “THE MUD. YOUR SHOES. I CAAAAAAN’T” and more  “Hi, Love. Thank you for buying saltines and Gatorade and cleaning up round 7.”

I pledge to watch my own “no soliciting signs” and stay curious about their inherent biases. I pray especially that those in positions of power do as well.

Next year in Jerusalem and Palestine, in Nigeria and Syria, in Ferguson and Dane County, in immigration detention centers and debtor’s prisons (yes, they still exist) and everywhere that injustice and suffering pervade.

Next year may all be free!

And Next year, girl Scouts, may you please bring back the Kookaburra. Amen

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Thank you, Jen Rubin, for making me aware of this Jews For Racial & Economic Justice #BlackLivesMatter Haggadah