A Passover Message from Brenda Gelfand

Passover is the celebration of the exodus from slavery to liberation. The Passover story teaches that the Israelite people were not freed in order to do whatever they wanted, but were freed from Pharaoh to create a holy community accountable to a higher law: The law that they received at Mount Sinai after leaving Egypt.

Freedom looks very different for me this year than it has in the past. Based on the 2020 elections and all the political unrest in the country, I feel that anti-Semitism is on the rise as well as racial injustice.

Passover this year marks a little over a year since the first statewide coronavirus “stay-at-home” order, and the pandemic changed the lives of so many people in 2020. Freedom is to be accountable and responsible for how our actions and inactions affect other people. We all had to give up our freedom in order to save the lives of everyone around us because of the pandemic, which limited social gatherings, visiting our loved ones, mask requirements, etc.

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Hopefully, freedom this year will be much different than last year. Life is slowly getting back to normal now that the vaccine is being distributed. Families are now visiting their loved ones and businesses are opening back up. We also must never lose our freedom when it comes to anti-Semitism and racial incidents.

Wishing you happiness, peace, prosperity and all the joys of Passover this year!

Brenda Gelfand is an AJT senior account manager.