Finding room at the table for all

It’s Passover-prepping season! In the Base homes around Chicago–the homes of a Rabbinic family which serves as a home-base for young adults and their friends–we’re prepping, too.

We’re getting ready to host 200 college students and young adults for Seder. Our guestlist will be diverse, with family not only across the United States, but in Israel, Iran, Morocco, the former Soviet Union, Hungary, and England. Some guests come from faiths other than Judaism, while others differ in politics, life stage, sexual identity, race, class background, and more.

Their ties to Jewish life run the gamut, too. Young adults who grew up in Jewish school or camp and loved it will sit next to others who were profoundly alienated by the same experience. Some are deeply engaged in Jewish life, and for others this will be the first Jewish thing they have done in years. Some will walk in with excitement, others with trepidation.

As Base rabbinic couples, we ask: How do we create a seder experience that’s meaningful for all of these different people?

We find inspiration in one highly-assimilated Jew who found himself at the heart of the Jewish story: Moses. The rabbinic commentators tell us that, as a young adult, Moses, like many of our Basers, knew and was proud that he was Jewish, but, raised by Egyptian foster parents, he knew nothing of the richness of his heritage or community. Moses asked great questions: “Who am I? What does it mean that I am a Jew? What am I called to do in the world?”

In our work at Base, we learn a great deal from God’s response to Moses: not by answering Moses’ questions, but by creating opportunities for him to find his own answers, and by asking him to step up as a Jewish leader, despite Moses not feeling worthy.

The medieval biblical commentator Nachmanides tells us that God created the burning bush, and left it in the desert until someone was ready to notice it. Moses, as a shepherd, perhaps walked by it many times until, one day, he was ready, and God was there, ready to engage him as a Jewish leader. That’s what we try to do at Base.

As Base families, our job is to keep the fire burning, until the moment when, like Moses, a young Jew asks: “Who am I? What does it mean that I am a Jew? What am I called to do in the world?” We provide Jewish spaces and tools to find answers and opportunities to step into Jewish leadership.

As we prepare our Seders, we reflect on the questions that we struggle with as we approach the Seder this year, and think about how to share them openly and honestly: What does it mean when liberation for some comes at the expense of great suffering for others? How are we, and this seder, different after two years of pandemic? How can we, unlike Pharaoh, soften our hearts? What is the role of work in our lives, and when does work become enslaving?

More importantly, we strive to build a Seder experience which centers the questions our young people grapple with in their lives, a Seder which lifts up their voices, helping them situate themselves in Jewish questions, and live towards their own answers–answers that are just as crucial for the future of the Jewish people as Moses’ were.

If this sounds appealing to you or someone you know between the age of 18 and 35, visit metrochicagohillel.org/base. To sign up for a Base Seder, email [email protected].

Base Chicago is part of Metro Chicago Hillel, and is a program of JUF, made possible through generous support from the Silverstein Family, the Friedman Family, the Crown Family, and others.

Rav Sarah Mulhern serves as the Rabbi of Base Lincoln Park, alongside her husband, Rav William Friedman.