There is something about this time of the year. It’s Holy Week, Ramadan, and Passover. All of the Abrahamic traditions are in a time of fasting and reflection. I have to say that all of these traditions are beautiful expression of faith, but one particularly arrests my attention, and it’s probably not the one you think.

I love Good Friday and seven last words services. I am in awe of the discipline of my friends who fast from sun up to sundown. But there is something about the Passover that draws me in, and it’s not just the drinking of wine. As a writer, the retelling of ancient stories fascinates me, and one of the things our Jewish brothers and sisters do at Passover is to connect the stories of the past to modern situations. It is a time of ritual, remembrance, and reflection.

According to Chutzpod, a podcast I listen to, there are three goals of the Passover seder:

1.)To inspire participation

2) enabling knowledge,

3)and bringing family and friends together.

Shouldn’t those be the goals of all of our religious ceremonies?

I don’t know how you are celebrating this weekend, but I pray that it be filled with a retelling, not just of the story of deliverance, but the story of YOUR own deliverance.

Your story will inspire others to tell their stories. Your stories will bring people together, and we will all be better for it.

Exodus 13:8

ח  וְהִגַּדְתָּ לְבִנְךָ, בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא לֵאמֹר:  בַּעֲבוּר זֶה, עָשָׂה יְהוָה לִי, בְּצֵאתִי, מִמִּצְרָיִם.

8 And thou shalt tell thy son in that day, saying: It is because of that which the LORD did for me when I came forth out of Egypt.