Before and After (Delivered at JCRC Annual Meeting, 3/20/24)
I sometimes wonder about this book from my personal library. I’m sure many of you recognize it—the Maxwell House Haggadah. They’ve been published for nearly a hundred years and are generally unremarkable. They’re beyond a dime a dozen. They started as a marketing ploy and literally were given away for free with your coffee. But…this one is special.
That’s because this dusty, wrinkled, faded copy is from 1938—the eve of the Holocaust.
I sometimes think about the people who used this book when it was first printed, on Passover in 1938, just a few months before Kristallnacht, a few years before two thirds of Europe’s Jews were to be murdered. Who glanced through its 5-year calendar of Jewish holidays, printed on the inside cover, detailing religious observances for 1938, 1939, 1940, 1941, and 1942.
When I hold this book in my hands, when I leaf through the pages, I wonder: Who were the family, the friends who sat around the table, drinking, laughing, celebrating together with this book?
Did those people know what was coming or how consequential it would be?
Did they know they were living through what is undoubtedly one of the darkest moments of our history?
What couldn’t they have even imagined about their place in history?
After all, only a short while after using this book—after getting drips of wine on it, crumbs of matzah stuck between its pages, everything would change. For this book’s original users, so soon after they celebrated Passover, there would be a before, and there would be an after.
I think, now too, it is safe to say that we are living through a before-and-after moment. And, if it has a pivot point, that date is October 7th. Like me, you must also remember:
Where you were when you began to hear the news; as, first, word trickled in of a breach of Israel’s border, then of a terror attack, then of terror attacks—of the Nova Music Festival, and of gratuitous and disgusting violence; the news that began that Shabbat, that Shemini Atzeret, that some tens, dozens, then hundreds had been slaughtered; the time we endured together, learning of the hostages who were taken—learning their names and faces, picturing the empty tables they left behind; and the fear we had—have—for Israel’s enduring safety, alongside our concerns for what the next days, weeks, and months would—will—bring.
Before October 7th, I was preoccupied with things that now feel so very small, or—if nothing else—somehow quaint. I was worried about the serious, but-noticeably-smaller quantity of antisemitic incidents in our city; things like hateful flyers being distributed around town. I was worried about how we could get the community involved in our then-upcoming election—these are things that were of the utmost importance, and yet, all the same, which now feel very foreign.
After October 7th, our world changed.
After October 7th, we reckon with the fact that Israel is far from invulnerable.
After October 7th, we see an egregious surge of hate against Jews.
After October 7th, we evaluate what it means to be in relationship with those who did not stand by our side in the ways many of us wished.
After October 7th, we fear, with renewed anxiety, what Jews have in virtually every other age and place: It could also happen here.
After October 7th, we ask: Can this be fixed?
Through it all, your Jewish Community Relations Council has worked to give voice to this community’s views and needs. We’ve sought to find the consensus in what—sorry folks—we all know to be a community of many opinions. We’ve had triumphs, we’ve had losses, we’ve had good times, and—yes—we’ve had bad times.
But we’ve shared them together, and—like for those who used that Haggadah—there’s no returning to life unchanged by the after. The pre-October 7th world we lived in is, for better or worse, now our before. And, tonight, we’ll explore with you what it means to find new ideas, life, and hope in our collective after. Thank you for joining us on the journey.