Passover plagues by Sue Robin

We are truly being faced with more than one plague, as Sue articulates so clearly and passionately.

Passover plagues
by Sue Robin, Los Angeles, CA

Last night was the first in seventy-two years that I have not sat down to Seder with family and friends. How strange it felt. I had freshly made gefilte fish with bottled horseradish (not my sister’s sinus clearing, made from scratch kind that I am used to), homemade matzo because I forgot to put matzo on the shopping list and Charoset that was hand chopped. We had leftover Chinese food for our main course! We did not do a formal Seder, but we did talk about freedom, which is, in the end, the heart of this holiday.

The age-old question of “how is this night different than all others” was easy to answer this year. We were not with our family and friends. We did recline while eating. We did not need to drip wine on our plates to remember all that plagues us. The entire world watches as a plague circles the globe leaving death in its wake. A second plague lives in the White House and that one has blood on his hands.

I was in tears as I read the paper this morning. Governors are ordering supplies for the hospitals and FEMA agencies are intercepting those purchases. Small less-inhabited red states are receiving an abundance of supplies while more populated blue states are sent moldy masks and ventilators that need repair. What idiocy! The President is pushing an unproven drug to treat COVID19 and, lo and behold, he owns stock in one of the drug companies that produces it!

The news is filled with death, but the stringent rules that our governors and mayors put in place and that kept us from our families, have allowed our communities to begin to flatten the curve. Those rules will not prevent the devastation and loss, but will help us all move from the darkness into the light that we might reclaim sanity, freedom and compassion for this world. Stay safe, stay well, stay home, and make sure you can vote come November!