Memories live in the details.

I could tell you about the seasonal vacations of my childhood driving from Los Angeles to the Sierra Nevada mountains and one version sounds like a travel itinerary. Palmdale to Lone Pine to Mammoth Lakes. Flashes of images are evoked with those names, and when I really pause to collect the details, the memories become more than one-dimensional stops along a map of the Mohave desert. I still hold in my mind’s eye moments and places, like the bakery we used to frequent in Bishop, California called Schat’s, where we would stock up on breads and treats. Dad was particularly fond of the walnut banana bread, which he ate with cream cheese. And then there was that soft serve place in Lone Pine with creamy vanilla and chocolate swirl that tasted like pure heaven. We climbed thousands of feet along the Eastern Sierra, and I can still smell the pine, the crisp snow in winter, the sweet and musky smells of wildflowers stubbornly dancing along the road.

Of all the Jewish holidays, Passover is the one more observed and with that, perhaps the holiday most laden with memories. This is captured in the following selected passages from a poem by Rabbi Hara Person from Mishkan HaSeder, entitled Passover Love Song. It’s a poem of love and memory, rendered in exquisite detail:

The seder is a love song written

In the language of silver polish

And dishpan hands

Freshly grated lemon zest…

Ashkenazi haroset

Vegetarian chopped liver

My mother’s real chopped liver

Bonnie’s matzah ball soup

Israeli salad…

Turkey and brisket

Pecan meringues

Chocolate dipped apricots.

Remember.

…Tulips on the mantle

My grandmother’s blue glass plates

Aunt Hannah and Uncle Joe’s silver

Nana’s candlesticks…

Grape stains on the tablecloth

Thin paperback hagaddot

Our mismatched family of friends

Silly half-versions of songs…

Don’t be fooled by the easy domesticity of these words.

This is more than a recipe for nostalgia.

This is an urgent coded message of

Survival

Adaptation

Love.

The details break open our hearts to something bigger, as Person writes in the conclusion of her Passover Love Song—the bursting of our tastebuds with brisket and meringues, the heavy glass plates and grape stains, the silly songs—all the cacophonous specificity carry us into the heart of big emotions and values—loss and memory, tradition and innovation, legacy and love.

I generally have very mixed feelings about social media, but it was a helpful platform for me to ask members of Temple and beyond to share a Passover memory. Here are a few, with gratitude for the offerings of these words:

Sponge cakes cooled upside down on the necks of soda bottles

Wine stains on the tablecloth tell the history of Seders gone by

Debates over the question: Is matzoh with butter better, or matzoh with cream cheese?

My absolute favorite Passover memory is my grandfather making high pitched noises with his hearing aid while everyone’s going around the table reading…he holds a finger to his lips and winks at us kids. The best.

We always had Passover at my mother’s sister’s home in Johnstown, PA. Aunt Millie kept kosher and Uncle Lou would lead the Seder in stages for a group of 20 or more cousins, aunts and uncles crammed into their small apartment.

I offered to host visitors one year and Temple Emanu El sent us an interesting couple from France. It turned out the man’s father was one of the prosecutors at the Eichmann trial, and he told us how much preparation that took.

As a fourth grader…we opened the door for Elijah at our Sunday school Seder and there stood Mr. Stern, my friend Nancy’s father.  Not a Seder has gone by that I don’t think of him as we open the door for Elijah. It still makes me smile.

My very first Passover was at my Brother and Sister in laws. I was 19 and just learning about Judaism. Funny thing, I thought the food was uninspiring and the service long and tedious. But after years of celebrating it, I came to appreciate and love it. It has become my favorite Jewish holiday.

When I completed my conversion during Passover…I remember we debated whether to choose Passover or Shavuot, and in the end, Passover felt right. Looking back, it was exactly the right time, especially since it’s the season of liberation and mirrored what I was stepping into…it felt like my own Miriam moment, which is even reflected in my Hebrew name.

Our own composition of memories for Passover varies over time, as year to year the seasons of life bring new insights, losses, joys. Some of us don’t have Passover memories over generations or years extending back; some of us mark the holiday with family through sending pictures across miles and oceans; some of us create very abridged versions because we have squirming toddlers or, this year, a little grape juice and matzah in the hospital room is our sacred observance.

Flavors and smells, visual images and textures, all of them add to the shape of our memories, which can, in turn, evoke a range of emotions. It’s not only the sweetness of times past—Passover is also about remembering the bitter, the narrow places, the oppression, the sufferings of the world. Commenting on Talmudic wisdom about remembering that slavery and freedom, darkness and light are always intertwined together like the flavors or salt and sweetness in the Passover meal, Michael Strassfeld writes:

To remember is not enough; rather, one should work to help bring about a time when all are free.”

How can our memories inspire action and commitment? As Rabbi Stern so powerfully asked two Shabbatot ago, “what will we do with the freedom we already have to let someone else’s pain into our hearts?” As we ask such probing questions, I invite you to join us on April 12^th, just as Passover concludes. Our community will convene a gathering we are calling Yom Tzedek, a day to learn, to connect, to act. Building on our 154-year history of making the world a better place, in partnership with Women of Reform Judaism, people of all ages and stages will participate in hands-on projects with partner organizations like Family Gateway and Now Forward; we will hear from Temple clergy and our member, Dallas Morning News journalist Robert Wilonsky; we will explore issues like immigration and religion in public schools through the lens of Jewish values; we will learn about current campaigns to uphold a just Israeli society. The day, as has always been our practice, isn’t an echo chamber to hear a single voice or opinion about the world. Yom Tzedek is one, essential, faithful response to a sense of overwhelm, with a focus on what we can do right here in our own backyard.

Memories live in the details. And freedom lives in the compassion and the commitment we practice as a faithful, diverse community. May we discover, through our memory and our action, the timeless wisdom from our ancestors’ desert journeys. As we make our way, may the voices and experiences of the past inspire our present work, to create a more whole and just future.

*sermon offered Shabbat of Pesach 5786