For most of my life, the guests at the Passover Seder table were almost all Jews. With all Jews at the table, all present shared a common attachment to the beloved rituals and knowledge of a wide range of commentaries on the text, and we could revel in the joyous Seder songs together. But in recent years, my husband and I have intentionally begun to invite Christian and Muslim colleagues and friends to our home for Seder. It has been fascinating to hear how our ritual is experienced by people for whom it is new, and to learn about how Christians and Muslims reflect from their own traditions on the biblical exodus story that lies at the heart of the Seder.
This year, two of the most beautiful contributions to our Seders came from non-Jewish guests. At our first Seder, my friend and colleague, Karen Schierman, of the Jay Phillips Center for Interfaith Learning, read an extraordinary midrash (an imaginative response to the biblical text) that she had written, telling the story of the plagues from the perspective of Pharoah. In so doing, she invited us into a powerful moment of empathy, as we contemplated not only the traditional image of Pharoah as evil, idolatrous despot, but also as human being with moments of doubt and fear. I can't imagine that I will ever read the exodus story in quite the same way again.
At our second Seder, my friend and colleague, Adil Ozdemir, a professor of Islam at St. Thomas University, mused about the dynamics of faith and faithlessness in the exodus story. For Jews, the story more often evokes reflections on justice, memory, communal identity, and the dynamics of social change. But that evening we had the privilege of listening to Adil explore an Islamic definition of idolatry, that is, holding as one's primary concern anything other than the Divine. For a few moments, our encounter was far deeper than the simple exchange of perspectives between Jews and Muslims. It was a moment of contemplating together the very nature of faith.
I have long known that there are some things we can only learn by seeing ourselves as others see us. Opening our homes and our hearts to those beyond our usual circles of community can bring us profound gifts of new learning, understanding, and connection.
