Pesach (first days and Chol Hamoed Shabbat)

Day 1: Caulfield Shule; Day 2: Hamerkaz; Shabbat: South Caulfield Shule

Generally for all festivals, but particularly for Passover, I usually arrange meals out or get invited out to families. As such, I tend to go to the shules where my hosts go even if I have been to those shules before or recently. This year for the first days of Pesach that was definitely the case, and will be the case for the last days too.

Despite the first days of Pesach falling on weekdays this year, the two shules I went to for the first days were relatively full and with a lot of positive vibes. Most people probably had late nights at their Seders but came to shule in the morning energised and invigorated. If this festival is about freedom, then this year more than most, that sense of praying for our freedom was on greater display than I have ever seen before. Not only were there extra prayers added to the service, but there was also a palpable sense of something missing.

On that note, most Seders from what I sensed, had an extra prayer or an extra symbolic item or even an extra chair for the hostages still in captivity in Gaza and for the victims of the war between Israel and Hamas. Both of the Seders I went to certainly acknowledged the victims and hostages in some way. And in a way it was hard for some people to celebrate Pesach in its truest form because of the war, but that is the Jewish way. As it says in the Haggadah, in each and every generation they rise to overpower us, but ultimately we will be victorious, and that is the hope that we all need to have during this festival and a message that every rabbi in every shule emphasised and reiterated.

The service on Shabbat morning had the same kind of energy, and whilst it felt and sounded very familiar, especially because I had been to South Caulfield shule relatively recently, there were also some people who came just because it was the Shabbat in the midst of Pesach. Some of the men even had ties or a kippah with Pesach symbolism. And South Caulfield shule, like the two shules I went to for the first days, had a kiddush after the service even on Pesach, though it was just cake. This was the case at Hamerkaz too, but the kiddush at Caulfield shule on the first day of Pesach was one of the biggest and most impressive shule kiddushes I have ever seen, let alone for Pesach. There were five different types of fish, just as many cakes and many other items besides. Apparently the kiddush there on the second day was even more impressive, with leftovers from the community Seder.

Food after all is an important and unique part of this festival, but ultimately it is about recollecting and reconstructing the story of the exodus from Egypt, and realising that with freedom comes responsibility and actions. The Jews of old did not achieve freedom for freedom’s sake, and it is our duty to continue that legacy of ensuring it wasn’t for naught. The last days of Pesach, where there are no Seders or specific rituals apart from the special food, are even more about that, so as we are about to enter those days, I wish everyone a meaningful end to their festival of freedom and look forward to next Shabbat where Challah will be back on the table, and therefore a new shule adventure awaits.