Rosh Chodesh Tov.
We are entering Nisan, the Hebrew month of spring and rebirth. The daffodils have broken through the soil, and all around us life is stirring again. Nisan is also the month of one of the most epic Jewish stories—the Exodus—a story that has inspired generations of Jews, and people of many faiths, to seek liberation.
In this time, the story can feel painfully close. Like the Pharaoh, we see leaders with hardened hearts guiding their people toward suffering. Like a plague, fire rains down from the sky on innocents. Millions seek shelter, praying this one will pass them by, or fleeing their homes with little more than what they can carry.
The Pesach story begins with a system that dehumanizes and exploits, serving power rather than the well-being of the people. It takes ten plagues to break its grip, but eventually liberation comes. In the wilderness, a movement is born. The sacred mountain replaces the pyramid at the center. In the open expanse of the midbar—the wilderness—the divine medaber–speaks, and the people begin to listen. New moral visions emerge—laws meant to balance personal responsibility, social justice, and care for the earth.
On Seder Night, we welcome everyone’s questions. Wonder opens the heart where certainty hardens it. Curiosity softens us. Listening brings us closer. Everyone is invited to ask—even the one who does not yet know how.
At a time when polarization runs high and even family members, scared or outraged, struggle to hear one another, the Pesach story invites us to begin again: to place the sacredness of creation back at the center, to admit we do not know everything, and to ask the questions that might reveal a way through.
May this Pesach bring liberation to all who suffer under oppression.
And may we remember the sacred life-giving mountain at the center—
where our people once stood together, listening.
Itamar Cohn
Adamah SF Hub Director
itamar.cohn@adamah.org
