| | |  | We are all Egyptians now
Daniel Kahn
And Pharaoh turned and went into his house, neither did he lay even this to heart. And all the Egyptians digged round about the river for water to drink for they could not drink of the water of the river (Exodus 17:23-24) |
 | As plagues go...
Benjamin Wittes
As I write these words, I am lying on a hammock, next to a fire burning in an outdoor fireplace on my porch. A glass of single-malt Scotch is in my hand. The Mozart second horn concerto is playing in the background. As plagues that shut down society go, this one turns out to have its upsides. |
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 | The invisible plague: grief
Seth Mandel
If you've never sat in an eerily empty subway car amid a global pandemic, while reading a novel about a train of influenza wiping out 99% of the world population — well I don't recommend it. |
 | The man-made plagues of Gaza
Muhammed Shehada
The story of Passover and the ten plagues always filled me with awe: Egyptians punished with hunger and thirst, bloody water, blinding darkness and loves ones lost overnight. When I was a young person, those horrifying plagues were unimaginable. |
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 | The plague's reminder: We only think we're in charge
Virginia Heffernan
As COVID-19 is not the fearsome Yersinia pestis bacterium — the rod-shaped, anaerobic organism that ravages human bodies by way of rat fleas — it is not, strictly speaking, a plague. No matter. If civilization can be said to be plagued by froyo shops or lED light displays, it's plagued by COVID-19, through the infection is viral and not bacterial. |
 | My great-grandmother survived Stalin and Hitler. I'm thinking of her this Passover.
Alex Zeldin
We're going to be alone for the seders.
It was the first thought in my mind that really hit home the severity of the COVID-19 crisis as New York authorities began telling people to stay home. The next one was: Are we even going to be able to have a pesadic Pesach? The question filled me with dread. |
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 | Coronavirus is exposing the plagues of American society
Isaac Bailey
If God sent coronavirus to our shores, it isn't because he's punishing us. He's simply forcing us to look into a mirror so we can finally take a good hard look at who we really are rather than what we've long pretended. |
 | I used to love the plagues — until I lived through one
Molly Jong Fast
As a child, my most favorite moment of Passover, the otherwise endless family dinner which featured a gelatinous fish dish and na overcooked meat dish, was the plagues. After all, the plagues were the moment we got to stick our fingers in the wine glasses and sing out the names of all the horrible things. |
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 | The Seder is a passport to the past and the future
Ari Hoffman
In her book, "Illness is a Metaphor," Susan Sontag bans us from using metaphor to describe disease. We need to toughen up, she thinks, and forgot the flight away from the thing itself, the marauding crimes wreaked on the body by maladies too many to count. |
 | In times of senseless tragedy, God manifests through us
Shai Held
The situation is devastating. An entire country, the most powerful one of its time, brought to its knees, its vast military and economic might no match for the plague that envelops it. It must have been utterly crushing to be an Egyptian back then. |
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 | Being alone, choosing life: Jewish practice in a plague
Deborah Lipstadt
For Jews who practice even a modicum of tradition, social distancing is an unnatural act. Our tradition is predicated on the notion that no Jew should live alone on a desert island. |
 | When a new plague exacerbates the old
Tema Smith
Every year at Passover seders around the world, as families gather to recount the story of the Israelites' exodus from slavery in Egypt, we recount the ten plagues that befell the Egyptians: Blood, frogs, lice, flies, pestilence, boils, locusts, darkness, the killing of the first born. |
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 | From plagues to Promised Land: Let's build a world of solidarity
Carin Mrotz
I remember a conversation with my son, who is 12 and studying for a Bat Mitzvah that is now in a holding pattern. Last year, at Passover, he told me he didn't think it was fairy that in order to free the salves regular Egyptians had to suffer the plagues. |
 | Even during a plague, choice is destiny
David Wolpe
In the book of Job, after Job has suffered great losses, his friends come to comfort him. Finding Job sitting on the ground covered in boils, they throw dust up in the air and onto their heads (Job 2:12). A modern Israeli scholar, Meir Weiss, suggests this may be early homeopathic medicine. |
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 | Anti-COVID cleansing gets a lesson from the Torah: We don't control everything.
Joel Swanson
I've slid back into old habits over the past two weeks. I struggle with obsessive hand and body washing, as a way of coping with past sexual trauma. My body feels polluted and tainted, and I wash it obsessively to provide some momentary relief from these feelings. |
 | Resistance to tyranny and longing for Zion, then and now
Amanda Berman
Of all the Jewish holidays that could coincide with a once-every-century global pandemic, there is clear divine instruction in its eclipse falling on Passover. |
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 | This Passover will be different from all others — and there's freedom in that
Shoshana Keats-Jaskoll
Passover is the birthday of the Jewish people. We went down to Egypt as a family, but we left Egypt as a people. For thousands of years, we have celebrated that birthday, but this year's Passover will be different from all other Passovers. |
 | In the 11th plague, all the world are neighbors
Noah Lubin
Though we will all be without guests this Passover, we will remain with neighbors. The eating of the pascal lamb was a collective event, a bonfire frenzy of hungry spiritual brothers (and sisters). |
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