Jewish tradition is a polemic against loneliness, on Passover and the rest of the year

It is a lonely time to be a North American Jew.

It is worth recalling that the Jewish tradition functions as nothing less than a polemic against loneliness. Upon creating the human being, God recognizes that “it is not good for Adam to be alone” (Genesis 2:18), and fashions a mate for him.

More sweepingly, the Book of Ecclesiastes insists that “two are better than one… For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falls; for he has not another to help him up. And, if two lie together, then they have warmth: but how can one be warm alone?”

This preoccupation with sociality is reflected in various Jewish rituals that aim to cultivate the array of relationships we hold in our lives. The focus is especially salient in holiday rituals, perhaps because peak communal and national moments are times when people without social or familial networks find themselves most alone and lonely.

Purim provides motivation and means to foster bonds of solidarity between friends, acquaintances, neighbors, and those who are familiar to us in our Jewish communities. We read the Book of Esther and are reminded of the precarious position of Jews in the Diaspora, subject to the whims of kings and megalomaniacs. In the face of this precarity, it is crucial that members of Jewish communities and neighborhoods feel connected to the collective and know that they can rely on one another.

Mishloach manot, the ritualized delivery of food parcels, is unique to Purim and most clearly embodies the lesson of the day. In the Book of Esther, both the lack of miraculous intervention on the part of God and the absence of the divine name suggest that it is up to the Jews to direct their own destiny through strategic alliances and maneuvering.

The Megillah’s instruction that Jews send mishloach manot on Purim teaches that while Esther and Mordechai’s stratagems vis-à-vis the ruling powers play a role in salvation, investment in internal Jewish infrastructure is equally crucial. We are tasked with building Jewish communities of care, joy, and interdependency that can meet the inevitable challenges we face as a minority.

And indeed, through the ritual instrument of gift-giving, we encounter a range of people in our town or neighborhood. Amid the freneticism of the day, we give and receive, give without getting something in return, and get packages without having the opportunity to reciprocate. This speaks to the rhythm of communal living, where we occasionally find ourselves on the receiving end, whether materially or emotionally, and other times find ourselves on the giving end.

Mishloach manot provides important opportunities for face-to-face encounters and tangible expressions of care and celebration.

A month after Purim, the Passover seder fosters two distinct sets of interpersonal connections. The seder is carefully constructed to strengthen family bonds and, simultaneously, to welcome strangers into this intimate, familial environment. These two priorities are salient and rooted in the Jewish tradition but also exist in an uneasy relationship with one another.

Passover centers and evokes family. This emphasis appears in the Torah, which mandates that family units offer and eat the Paschal sacrifice, and has continued to the present day, where extended families converge on seder night. Illuminations from medieval haggadahs display family members engaged in various activities preparing for and celebrating Passover, and the iconic text of the four sons testifies to the significance of telling the story of the Exodus to one’s children on this night.

Celebrating a holiday like Passover creates reservoirs of family memories and generates the resilience that comes from narrating our immediate and distant pasts. This is wholly appropriate in the context of marking the moment, whether we think of it mythologically or historically, when Israel forges its identity as a nation. Telling the same story and practicing the same set of rituals is a means of accessing and transmitting collective identity, whether as a family or a people.

It is all the more striking, therefore, that at the precise moment when this identity formation is taking place on both micro-familial and macro-national levels, the haggadah asks that we open ourselves up to new people who will inevitably change the comfortable patterns established over many years, and potentially introduce new dimensions to the story we tell.

The haggadah disrupts this family dynamic by mandating at the outset of Magid, the storytelling section, that “kol dichphin yeytey veyechol,” that we invite those who are hungry or in need to join us in our family seder. Even as family can be conflictual and messy, it is generally familiar.

When we celebrate the seder with similar configurations of people year after year, doing the same things and telling the same stories, we know people’s personalities and preferences, and indeed, the haggadah seems to recognize this in typecasting the four sons. When we invite outsiders in, however, we do not know who will arrive or what baggage they will bring. Not only do they alter the atmosphere around the table, but they also potentially destabilize the canonical story we are commanded to tell and retell.

The haggadah asks us to elaborate and expatiate on the core Exodus narrative, and to imagine (or to show) ourselves as having participated in it. Essentially, we are asked to interpret, apply, make relevant, and make meaning of the story. When we offer a seat to a stranger, those outside the familial comfort zone, we run the risk of engaging with narratives and ideas that are alien, if not alienating.

The tension between these two core elements of Passover, celebrating as a family and welcoming strangers, was illuminated for me last year when I asked a friend in our Jerusalem synagogue how her seder had gone. She gave me a smile and a gentle grimace, and described what was already gearing up to be a chaotic, albeit loving, seder with a crowd that spanned a wide age range, multiple mother tongues, and different family units related in various ways.

But then, as she put it, “Elijah the Prophet joined as well.” She explained that they had encountered a distraught woman on the street, who had recently been estranged from her family. They invited her to join them and tried to make her feel at home and comfortable. Lacking the scallions she was accustomed to using to hit fellow seder guests according to the Persian tradition, they tried substituting celery leaves without, apparently, the same effect. While aspects of the evening were challenging, bringing this stranger to their family table realized the holiday’s twin and intertwined messages: Even as we mark Passover within the family milieu, we are responsible to welcome those who are hungry, poor, and living on the margins.

Likewise, even as the Jewish people constitute a type of family with a common origin story, we cannot retreat so deeply into our familial, communal, and national enclaves that we lose sight of the strangers in our midst.

Indeed, on the night we retell the Exodus, the ethic of kol dichphin appropriately embodies the love that the Torah commands us to show the stranger “for you too were once strangers in Egypt.” Making space at our family seder for strangers serves as a microcosm for thinking about how we open our communal or national boundaries to include or support those who struggle with any type of belonging, whether they are Jews or not. New people around our “table” push us away from moral and spiritual complacency and force us to reckon with new ideas, values, practices, and identities.

At a time when things we thought were secure seem to be unraveling, let us use these holiday rituals to consider the role of relationships in helping us navigate this world. Purim and Passover both strengthen the bonds among insiders in Jewish communities and families. This is how we thrive in times of security and prosperity, and how we confront times of vulnerability and threat.

Passover, however, also demands that as we look around our beloved familial and communal tables, we lift our eyes to notice who is not there, who is estranged, who is in trouble, who is under threat. This provision ensures that as we build strong and caring networks, we do not become narcissists with limited moral horizons.

The haggadah and the Torah require this even though it necessarily means sacrificing a measure of comfort, solidarity, and even security. It is only then that we can merit to realize the redemptive prophecies of Isaiah (56:6-7): “Also the sons of the stranger that join themselves to God… them too will I bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer…for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”

God, too, will welcome the stranger to join in prayer and celebration.