The world feels increasingly unsteady.
War dominates headlines. Antisemitism has surged in ways many believed were consigned to history. Artificial intelligence is reshaping work, knowledge and human interaction faster than our institutions can absorb. These are not separate crises — they are symptoms of a deeper disorder: the erosion of the shared frameworks, habits, and spaces that once held societies together. And at home, families continue to feel the strain of inflation and economic uncertainty, quietly reshaping daily life.
It is no wonder that so many feel anxious — unmoored, even — as if the ground beneath them is shifting.
More than two centuries ago, the Hasidic teacher Rebbe Nachman of Breslov offered a striking image of the human condition: “The whole world is a very narrow bridge, and the main thing is not to be afraid.” It is a line at once simple and enduring, capturing a truth that feels especially acute today. Life does not always feel expansive or secure. It often feels constrained, uncertain — something to be navigated carefully rather than lived with confidence.
That is precisely why the Jewish holiday of Passover matters now.
Passover is not merely a commemoration of ancient liberation. It is a discipline: an annual reorientation toward memory, responsibility, and hope in the face of uncertainty. The Israelites did not leave Egypt with a clear road map or a stable future. They stepped into the unknown — the sea did not part until they moved forward. Their journey was long, imperfect and marked by doubt.
But it began with a pause.
I still remember the first Seder after I became a father. My son was too young to ask the Four Questions himself, but I knew the moment was coming — that it would fall to me to answer them. And something shifted.
I’ve spent years teaching these ideas in classrooms. But this was different. This was not professional. This was sacred. I was not transmitting information. I was transmitting myself: my stories and values, my moral code, my people’s memory, my understanding of what it means to be free and what freedom demands of us. Teachers illuminate the world for other people’s children. That is an honor. But to illuminate the world for your own child, to be the one who hands the story forward — that is something else entirely. That is continuity. That is what the Seder is for.
Before the exodus, families gathered. They prepared. They marked their doorposts and told a story. They oriented themselves not around fear, but around meaning.
That structure endures. Each year, Jews around the world sit at the Seder table and do something that modern life rarely encourages: they stop. They gather across generations. They ask questions. They tell an old story slowly, deliberately and together.
In a culture defined by speed, efficiency, and constant connectivity, this is no small thing.
The Seder resists optimization. It is not about productivity or performance. It is about presence — sustained, attentive, shared presence. The table becomes a kind of technology of transmission: one generation handing to the next not just facts about the past, but a way of inhabiting it. And that transmission is exactly what this moment demands.
This season carries similar meaning for many Christians as well, as Easter approaches — a parallel call to renewal, sacrifice and hope.
Much of today’s anxiety is not only the product of external threats, but of internal fragmentation. We are more connected than ever, yet often more isolated. Our institutions feel less stable. Our public discourse is more brittle. Even our private lives are increasingly shaped by distraction and performance.
Healthy societies depend on habits of gathering, storytelling and transmission. They require spaces where people come together not to perform or argue, but to listen, reflect and connect.
Passover offers a counterpoint.
It reminds us that meaning is not found in the endless scroll of information, but in shared rituals that anchor us. It teaches that identity is not constructed in isolation, but inherited, cultivated, and passed forward. It insists that memory — honest, textured and communal — is a precondition for resilience.
This is not only a Jewish lesson. It is a civic one.
Healthy societies depend on habits of gathering, storytelling and transmission. They require spaces where people come together not to perform or argue, but to listen, reflect and connect. Without those habits, social trust weakens. Without those spaces, individuals drift.
We are living through the consequences of that drift.
Consider what the resurgence of antisemitism reveals. It is not simply the return of an ancient prejudice — it is a sign that the moral knowledge required to sustain pluralism is eroding. The ADL recorded 9,354 antisemitic incidents in 2024, the highest number since tracking began in 1979 and a 344% surge over five years. When people no longer share the stories that bind them, they become vulnerable to the oldest and most corrosive of substitutes: scapegoating and contempt.
The rapid advance of artificial intelligence raises its own set of moral challenges. The question is not only what AI can do, but what human capacities it will displace — and what we lose when judgment, deliberation and wisdom are outsourced to machines. These are not technical problems. They are civilizational ones. And they cannot be solved by the same speed and efficiency that produced them.
Taken together, these forces create a pervasive sense of instability — a feeling that the bridge beneath us is narrower than it once was.
Passover does not eliminate that reality. It does something more subtle, and perhaps more necessary: It teaches us how to live within it.
By stepping away from the noise, even briefly, individuals and families can regain perspective. By reconnecting with tradition, they rediscover continuity. By gathering around a table, they rebuild the bonds that make resilience possible.
The holiday’s central message — that freedom is not simply granted, but cultivated — also carries renewed urgency.
Freedom requires responsibility. It requires the willingness to remember, to teach and to carry forward a shared inheritance. It demands the courage to move forward even when the path is unclear.
We cannot widen the bridge. We cannot eliminate uncertainty from our lives.
But we can decide how we cross.
We can choose memory over amnesia. Presence over distraction. Responsibility over retreat. We can move forward not because the path is easy, but because it is necessary.
In a moment defined by anxiety, Passover offers something rare: not escape, but orientation.
And that is exactly what this moment demands.
Chag sameach.