Rabbi Vicki Hollander

Moorings, Approaching Pesach

Rooting yourself as you walk in grief

When I call You,
answer me
just as when I
was in
a narrow place,
You set me free.

Show kindness
to me now
and hear my 
prayer.

-Psalm 4:2

Long ago in Egypt we were slaves crying out in pain.
And we learned that we were heard,
saw that there was Presence with us
as we ran into the wilderness,
pillars of cloud by day, and fire by night,
by our side.

So too now in this time of grief, in this time of narrowness, yet again are we accompanied.

Pesach and the Coming of Spring:

Coping with Grief During this Season of New Life

As the trees move into blossom,
as the bulbs reach upwards towards the light,
spring approaches.

Yet for those who mourn,
inner worlds may feel in sharp contrast to the outer one.

Many internally experience being in winter, feeling out of sync
with the surge of new life.

For some the beauty of spring flowers
bring desire to share these and
sharp reminders that their loved one aren't here to see
and relish them.

And it is in this season that Pesach nears.

Pesach, laden with images of people gathering and of family.
Yearning rises for belonging, connectedness, for our loved one
and for home.

Readying for this holiday can make a difference.
And thus this newsletter comes as resource to aid you
as you enter into this powerful time of year and of soul
in this juncture of mourning.

Common Grief Reactions:

During this season you may experience feelings of being overwhelmed and of deep loneliness.
You may feel particularly tender and vulnerable.
The linking of family and food and music and ritual evokes memories, feelings, and longings.

My father was a wandering Aramean
-Hagadah

Important Task During This Time:

Focus on what you need this year:
The journaling questions further below can help you reflect on what is most important about Pesach for you.

Look also at the tasks mentioned in the Chanuka newsletter, for many of them relate to this holiday as well.

Natural Questions and Responses:

After my loved one's death our family has felt like it's broken apart. Is it just us?
Is this normal?

It's not unusual for families to "fall apart" during a life threatening illness and/or after a death has taken place.

With a member missing, families have to re-arrange themselves.
Sometimes the person who died was the core who connected everyone else and/or who kept the peace.
Some families have long had fractures and have delicately hung together, but with increased stress and loss
these divisions have emerged more vividly.

Everyone in a family mourns in their unique ways.  Everyone is thin skinned, sensitive and often without the
resources to respond graciously due to weariness, stress and grief.

And despite families hopes that a family member will "transform" when a death occurs, people tend to be more
strongly who they are, returning to old ways of coping.

Seeing a counselor who's well versed in  family systems as well as with bereavement for support and coaching on
how better to handle these situations can greatly help.

And there are times when families break apart from each other, creating ripples of additional losses and leaving
not only the loss of a loved one, but also the loss of their feeling of family.

I've always loved Pesach, but found it tiring to prepare for, often feeling too tired to enjoy Seder
by the time my guests arrived. Now that I'm mourning I'm even more concerned about this.

Your concern is well based. This is a time to be truthful with yourself.
Do you have the energy this year to host Seder? Would it be better this year to be a guest
at a friends, family, or synagogue Seder?

If no one invites you, ask someone you're close with if you can join them this year. If you choose to host a Seder,
simplify preparations as much as possible. Delegate dishes for guests to bring and/or buy ready-made food.
Ask family and friends to help in the preparations both before and after Seder.

Honor your grief. Watch out for becoming too depleted from all the work and for over-estimating what you are
up to doing. With the increased stresses, memories rising, and surfacing of grief, you may not have as much
time and energy available as you've had in the past.

Remember what's most important for you about this holiday.
Enable yourself to experience it's power and beauty.

My soul thirsts for You
as in a dry and weary land
without water

-Psalm 63:2

Journaling Questions:

What follows are some questions, explore what most draws you.

Remember this day,
on which you went free from Egypt,
the house of bondage
-Exodus 13:3

Things to Do That Might Enrich This Time for You:

Music:
As you prepare for the holiday, music lifts the soul.
Personal favorites are:
The Passover Story sung by the Western Wind and narrated by Theodore Bikel.
Songs from a Passover Haggadah from Transcontinental Music Publications-URJ
Cindy Paley presents A Singing Seder.

Tzedakah:
Just as on other holidays the giving of Tzedakah in your loved one's memory to an organization
can touch your spirit, knowing you're aiding others in need.

Meditation before Seder:
You Who aided my ancestors as they faced life's hardships,
travel with me now.

I am ready to undertake this evening's journey.
I open myself to enter deeply into a telling that has taken place for thousands of years,
a story that belongs intimately to me.

Seder holds deep meanings as I create the tale that is my life:
how I meet adversity, how I hold my struggles, how I handle change, how I deal with fear,
how I respond to those with power over me, and how I uncover the power that lies within me,
how I respond to inner voices which oppress me, and what it is that gives me hope, that touches my soul.
This is a story for this very moment in my life.

Yizcor:
On the eighth day of Pesach comes Yizcor, a time of remembering.

The Hebrew Month of Iyar:
The Hebrew month following Nisan, the month of Iyar, which comes two weeks after Pesach,
was said to have been a time of healing for our ancestors after they left Egypt.

A time of recovering from some of the wounding of captivity and oppression. 
A time of succor. A time of building spiritual relationship.

Imagine moving into the ancient invitation of Iyar this year of your mourning.
Allow yourself space this month to be quiet in, reflect and heal, just as our ancestors did so long ago.

To mark the Spring:
Buy an herb or green plant for your home.
Bring in some of that energy of growth and life.

Rav Yehudah said:
Whoever goes outdoors
in Nisan
and sees the trees in leaf
should say: "Blessings
to the One Who created
goodly creatures
and goodly trees
for the enjoyment
of humankind"

-Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot 43b, adapted.

Mourning and Spiritual Messages Derived From This Holiday:

Walking the Desert

For some who mourn being bereaved can feel like being suddenly thrust into a desert,
into a rocky, barren place, empty, desolate, and foreign. With few resources, stripped to the bone.

Our ancestors too left all that they knew, entering into the wilderness.
City people, they learned to live in the desert.
With new ways of eating and sleeping. With new rhythms of life.
Thrust into unprotected wilds, living intimately in the elements,
they walked closely with their Source.

When mourning we too are cast into the desert.
We learn in time how to care for ourselves when we feel lost.
How to survive in this new place of grief.
We learn when to move and when to stay put.
We learn to listen and to read the messages that rise up from our bones.
We learn to find springs of water, how to find openings to underground caverns in which to seek shelter.

In the desert we encounter our angels and our demons.
New parts of self. New parts of soul.
Desert walking, like mourning, is hard work. Struggles, gifts and hardships interweave.

Grief breaks us wide open. Mourning invites us to enter into those openings.
To listen. Feel. Learn. It is inherently a deep passage.

To enter the deep process of mourning we need feel the pain, the broken places.

At times it pins us to the ground. Laughs at us when we try to control it.
And at times it holds us making us surrender to forces greater than our understanding.

To travel the terrain of grief and spirit is to enter a domain of mysteries and wildness.
Where bushes burn and are not consumed. Where angels speak at the very last moment.
Where people find healing and where exiles find their way home.
Where at our travels end
we come out differently from how we entered.

They cried out to You in their trouble and
You brought them out of their distress.
You quieted the storm and stilled the waves and they were gladdened.

You led them to a haven.
You turned a wilderness
into a pool of water
and a dry land
into water springs.

You caused the hungry
to dwell there
and established
an inhabited city.
They sowed fields and planted vineyards which yielded bountiful fruits.

-Psalm 107: 28-30, 35-37 adapted

A Resource for Comfort and Support:

A prayer-poem for aid during this time.

HaRahaman,
You Who love deeply from within,
draw near us
as we sit on the hard parched earth
amidst desert wind,
wilderness all around us, large empty spaces
so wild, so unfilled.

Uncover wells that we might drink.
Help us heal our wounds.
Hold us close when we call to You.

Be there
as our bodies and souls mourn
as we relearn our lives
as we refind You.

As You
we refind.

So in time
may it be.

Take good care

as you travel through this season

of power,
mystery and
the deeper places.

Guide to Hebrew word:

Tzedakah: funds for justice making

Photography Credits:

Vicki Hollander