"Why is this night different from all other nights?" The question is so important that someone must recite the four questions at the seder even if there is no child unfamiliar with the answer. So this year, I asked the question myself, because it was Passover and I was the only one to ask it. Indeed, I was the only one in my room—and it was the first year of my life not attending a Seder at all.
I am in East Africa, here on a medical mission—seeing patients, and teaching medical students and residents. There is something eerie about being here on this holiday. God leads the Jews out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. In a kind of reverse exodus—is it defiance?—I have returned to the continent of our enslavement. At the Seder table we remember that God led us out of Egypt, freed us from the yoke of slavery. But for me, I live temporarily in a land where nefarious diseases and poverty metaphorically enslave a population.
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