Every year at Passover seders around the world, as families gather to recount the story of the Israelites’ exodus from slavery in Egypt, we recount the ten plagues that befell the Egyptians: Blood, frogs, lice, flies, pestilence, boils, hail, locusts, darkness, the killing of the firstborn. As they are recounted, wine is spilled from our cups, in recognition that our own joy at our freedom must be diminished because of the suffering of the Egyptians.
Even our enemies are worthy of our compassion.
At my family’s seder table, we would continue around the table, with everyone contributing a modern plague to the conversation: Domestic violence, modern slavery, income inequality, the struggles of indigenous communities, gender disparities and discrimination, racism and xenophobia, housing insecurity, the loneliness epidemic… each year the list would address some of the major issues of our day.
Never, though, did it cross our minds that there might come a day when our seder itself would be interrupted by a contemporary plague. We never even imagined that there could be something like the novel coronavirus spreading at a rapid pace through the world, threatening lives and livelihoods alike, that would keep families apart on this night where typically we come together.
For many of us, this plague is the only thing on our minds as we physically distance ourselves from the world outside our homes. Something foundational in life as we know it has shifted — and there is no clear end on the horizon. TOP ARTICLES2/5READ MOREWe are the Egyptians now
The more I think of this plague, the more I think back to the plagues we named each year around my family’s seder table. So many of them have been put into stark relief by the present circumstances.
Read more: https://forward.com/opinion/442681/when-a-new-plague-exacerbates-the-old/
