photo by Seth Holtzman

We tell scary stories at Passover.  The accounts of the ten plagues of Egypt, from frogs to locusts to the death of the first-born – are not easy to hear.  Still, we love Pesach.  Children claim it as their favorite holiday.  Pesach is connected with family and fun, with joy and laughter and warmth.

Perhaps the reason for the seeming contradiction is that we plug into the feeling of liberation rather than the terror of the plagues.  We connect the newness and freedom of this time of year to a familiar biblical tale of freedom from bondage.

It’s not hard to feel the sense of our own liberation.  We’ve just come out of winter to find the world renewing.  Our first daffodils are to be seen; the witch hazel is blooming.  The world is coming alive again after the dark and narrow winter days.

By the time we gather for Passover, spring is fully and completely here.  We are ready to celebrate.  We welcome with joy not only the bright colors of spring after a long, grey winter, but also our retelling of an ancient story that describes our birth as a nation and a people.

Our community Seder is fun from start to finish.  We have occasionally used multitudes of frogs to decorate our tables, and they add to the brightness and joy of the festivities.  We hear from Moses and Miriam, and we dance around the tables singing at Pharaoh to “let my people go.”  We revel in the openness of Pesach, and we have fun for a reason:  telling these stories underlines the fact that we have (again) escaped the narrow, grey spaces.  We are free to enjoy the colorful miracles of another year.

[A version of this piece appeared in the April 2011 Charlotte Jewish News]