Befriending the Other: Making a Seat at the Table for All Beings at Your Passover Seder
And 18 vegan recipes to create a beautiful meal
I was raised in a secular Jewish home but even so, Passover was observed and was a warm occasion, bringing the extended family together. To me, no other religious holiday captures the unique perspective of Jewishness that is just so distinctly and beautifully expressed in our culture as well as Passover. Reading the Haggadah at our Passover seder once a year, I also felt less alone and more connected. I was part of something meaningful and historic.
At its core, Passover is not just a historic tale but an encouragement to all who face hardship and injustice, a reminder about powering through to our personal and collective liberation and internalizing what we learned to become more compassionate, wise people. As someone who is not of faith but would probably best be described in simple Judeo-Christian terms as agnostic, it is this liminal space of feeling both of the world and like an outsider that is so quintessentially Jewish to me. It’s not sitting in a synagogue that evokes this feeling for me but an inner-quality that is always there, a bittersweet kernel always in my core that is very difficult to grab hold of or describe. It is innately understanding the push-and-pull of being an outsider…
