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By Rabbi Joshua Kullock,
Comunidad Hebrea de Guadalajara, Mexico

Translated by Inés Baum - Proofreading by Ellen Zindler

The month of Nissan will begin next Monday night; in less than 20 days, one of the most transcendental festivities of the Hebrew calendar will begin. But actually, if we want Pesach to permeate us instead of just passing us by, we must prepare ourselves. And this is why, these days, we should work once more on our Jewish self, a self that constitutes itself through action; because just as it happens with muscles, they never develop unless you exercise them.

Nissan is a period of personal, family and community work. It is a time for gathering. Not by chance, the name of one of the parashiot we read this week is Vayakhel, “Congregate”. Just as the people of Israel again gathered for the inauguration of the Tabernacle, after the crisis of the golden calf, thus we should gather today, to inaugurate the challenge of educating ourselves for freedom.

Is it then a coincidence that the day chosen for the Mishkan’s inauguration was a 1st of Nissan, 3000 years ago?

Regarding the Mishkan, it is interesting to notice that the Torah uses the same terms that were used to describe the creation of the world. And this detail calls us to reflection. Because the Torah, by means of the same words and the same structure, expects to teach us that humankind, when in community, has the capacity to create; is free to create. But that creative freedom should be a responsible one, because just as they were given the possibility of creating and recreating worlds and dwellings, man built idols and false gods. Similarly, as man discovered medicines, he also struggled to build bombs for the destruction of millions of his fellow men. That is why we must educate ourselves for liberty, for a freedom that is creative and responsible.

Nissan is a time to relive the Nes, the miracle of our ancestors in Egypt. And it is also time to delve into the Nisim that surround us. Immersed up to our eyes in all the bad things that happen, we often forget to feel thankful for the miracles of our everyday life. A safe roof over our heads, clothing and food every day, and being together with the people we love, among others. And those are precisely the miracles that we should multiply, so as to be a part of, and strengthen in our community. To that effect, we must prepare ourselves in these days prior to Pesach, because then we will be able to reach the Seder night and welcome Eliahu, who in his transcendental sense is not a man who arrives on a donkey to drink a fifth cup of wine, but the Geullah, redemption itself, which becomes a reality when we open our doors to those who have less. It is then that we no longer wait for Eliahu’s knock on our door, but rather go out to find him and, mainly, to find what he symbolizes. It is in that same spirit that, on each of our tables, we must raise the bread to divide it and share it with those who need it most, for these small things that are so big, are what constitute the true miracle. Bechol Dor vaDor…, “Generation after generation”, as it is written in the Haggadah, we must see and feel ourselves as departing from Mitzraim, experiencing the miracle that occurs in a present continuum .

With its arrival, Nissan poses once again a challenge to us. May God help us to rediscover ourselves in the possibility of the everyday miracles. And may we then be able to create and recreate, freely and responsibly, dwellings for God, which are none other than dwellings for all humankind.

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Forwarded by Rabbi Gustavo Kraselnik, from Kol Shearith Israel Congregation, Panama.
Translated by Inés Baum and proofread by Ellen Zindler, from B’nei Israel Congregation, Costa Rica.

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