Here's one for Passover: I think liberation must always hurt, like when you've sat on your leg for a while and finally get up to move around. The muscles and nerves refill with life, and it hurts.
So next week we'll tell all of the stories about our ancestors' action-packed liberation from Pharaoh, and if we're being sophisticated we'll also talk about the internal resistance, all that kvetching and near-mutiny in the wilderness -- because liberation is tough and the Israelites knew it.
But I never get away with just the metaphors. Every year life gives me a real first-hand Passover lesson, and this year it is that I am being laid off by my floundering tech company, another statistic in the economic collapse. I just found out. My last day at work will be the day before first-night seder.
It's tough news. I've never been laid off before. It beats being fired, I guess, and it's even arguably better than sticking around a place that's falling apart, but it's scary to not have that security of knowing where the next paycheck comes from. I'm trying to take it all in the spirit of the season. Springtime: everything pushing through the dirt to come back to the fullness of life. And Passover: sweet freedom through a harrowing process. I'm excited, scared. Excited. Here we go!
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