A March To Remember

I don’t know about you, but I really needed last month’s Jewish Festival.

It was so uplifting to spend the day at Temple celebrating Jewish culture, religion, and peoplehood. It was a blessing to highlight the ways that our Temple is a place of inclusion, not only within Judaism but also far beyond our community.

I am particularly thankful to Festival Chairs Jodi Kolada and Stacey Papier who, together with a team of hundreds of volunteers and Temple’s staff, showed that “it takes a village.”

At a time when there are so many messages that everyone is on their own, Temple Emanuel lifts up the timeless Jewish message that community matters. We may not agree on everything, but we are stronger when we are in community than any of us is on our own.

That message isn’t only for Jewish Festivals. It is also central to the Jewish festival of Passover that we will celebrate this month.

In ancient times, the entirety of our people would make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem as part of Passover. We did this because community matters.

Fast forward to our times. Studies consistently rank the Passover seder as the most observed of any Jewish ritual. Even though we haven’t had pilgrimages since the Temple was destroyed nearly two thousand years ago, and our adherence to the norms and customs surrounding Passover may vary significantly, we still feel the pull of gathering together.

It is taught that all Jewish people were together on at least two occasions during the Exodus. One was when we stood at Mt. Sinai to receive the Torah. The other was on Passover, when we were redeemed from Egyptian slavery and marched our way to freedom.

I truly pray that this year’s Passover will be a time of freedom for all people and for our people. My heart is still torn as we begin April, 59 hostages are still being held by Hamas terrorists and their accomplices in Gaza. While I work for freedom here at home and always pray for peace, I can’t help but think of the hostages. Each day, I take a piece of masking tape and write the number of days on it in permanent marker, wearing that number above my heart wherever I go. I truly hope that by this Passover, they will all be back in Israel so that those who are alive can be reunited with their families and those who are not can receive a proper burial.

When Passover ends, I will be heading with a small group from our area to Poland and Israel for the March of the Living. Three high school seniors and two adults will be in our group. As the name of this experience indicates, we will not be doing this alone. We will be marching and doing so together. In Poland, we will be marching with survivors on Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day). Shortly thereafter, we will go to Israel where we will also march, together with Israelis of all backgrounds, doing so in Jerusalem on Israel’s 77th Yom HaAtzma’ut (Independence Day).

The reason we will do this is as old as the Torah and as new as Temple’s Jewish Festival. It is because community matters. Please look for our 2025 March of the Living pictures and write-ups on Temple’s social media accounts later this month.

On behalf of Michal, our family, and the entire Temple community, I wish you and yours a Passover filled with freedom, meaning, and blessing.

Rabbi Andy Koren

Senior Rabbi