Just over 25 years ago I began attending Passover seders at my friends J and E's home. Their sons were just young teens then, and now they are both PhDs with smart and capable wives. One couple has had two children. I have moved away from NYC, but I will drive down to the city so that I can help with the preparations for seder starting Thursday and into Friday. I will be peeling veggies and laughing and basking in the immense joy of my extended family. With the exception of one 85 year old (Catholic) cousin, my entire blood family is dead. So my extended family is my family in every way.

When I sit down for seder with them on Saturday and Sunday, I will feel as though I am riding in the groove of a well-trod road toward an eagerly sought destination.

It is the annual Passover gathering -- time for familiar foods, familiar ritual, familiar family banter and the comfort of things that may flex, but do not change. In a world where almost everything seems up for grabs in the slipstream of perpetual change, Passover arrives as a river flowing, uninterrupted, through time.

Shira in Cross Currents tells the story of how seders were managed in the brutal starvation settings of concentration camps during WWII.

Distributorcaptells the story of the Warsaw Uprising which occurred 65 years ago, in 1943,

The Warsaw Ghetto uprising was an act of desperation, but also and act of incredible bravery and fortitude --- the Jews of Warsaw knew they faced a choice between dying in battle with only a slim hope of escape, or certain death via deportation to an extermination camp – they chose to fight. While resistance in this case may have been futile, the survival and bravery demonstrated by the Jews in Warsaw was anything but futile.

The Israelites, also, could not have survived the trials of the exodus without eachother -- without banding together to make the best of things. This was a village, a nation, in motion, everyone helping the other move right aong, helping to survive the desert, reminding eachother that freedom and doubt were better than the certainty of slavery.

I think there is a lot to be learned from the Exodus story, on all sorts of levels. Today it strikes me that the Israelites' journey was all about change, risk and faith.

The legend has it that not all Israelites left when they had the chance. Some preferred the certainty of life in slavery to the Egyptians than the risk of such dramatic upheaval. The Israelites were pretty much like the rest of us, sometimes brave and sometimes too entrenched to move.

It was a combination of hope and faith that spurred people on. People longed for something better and believed it was actually possible. That longing, that desire -- where is it now in us?

What compels us to get up, gather and walk together toward a better future? What desire in us is so strong that we are willing to pull up emotional (if not physical) stakes to make it happen?

Perhaps we have to look at it from an individual level first. We all have our own exodus stories.

I know a woman named Jan who survived breast cancer. She and I talked about her exous story from affliction to recovery and she pointed out the fact that she could see where she needed to be -- but could not have gotten there without the help and support of other people. Then, when they offered it -- she had to allow herself to accept it.

I look back over my own life and at every rough point there are hands reaching for my hand, people around me, kind words being spoken. It took faith and a village to get me through each personal exodus.

Passover reminds us that we can't get through this life alone. One of the things I admire most about Judaism is what seems to me from my goyishe vantage point, as a sense of connectedness, each Jewish person to each other Jewish person. There is a lingering sense of tribe, a remnant of years wandering together, depending on each other's help, surviving the worst of persecutions together, sharing the best joys and the most agonizing of griefs.

The depth of tribalism is the sense that although we may differ, even dramatically, we are bound up with each other in inescapable ways. You are part of me. I am part of you. We are part of something greater.

I have a difficult friend whom I love. Many years ago, a mutual friend and I were comparing notes after a turbulent time. She said to me, "What the heck -- she is ours. You know what it is to have a difficult relative? I had an aunt who was cranky as hell. But she was our aunt. She belonged to us. And nobody better mess with her, because she's one of us. We love her because she is part of the family. She may be a bitch, but she is OUR bitch. Well, that is how I feel about X. We've loved her a long time. She may be a control freak, but she is OUR control freak."

Now that is tribal talk. People may be difficult, but we are all part of the same bigger thing. And nothing trivial will make us split the tribe.

Even Moses got fussy with God when God told him to free the Israelites. Nah, he couldn't speak well -- no one would listen to him. So no thanks, God, he couldn't really do it. So God gave him a staff with which to perform miracles and sent Aaron, Moses's brother, with him to be the spokesman. God was gathering a tribe. he could have smacked Moses upside the head, but instead he just provided resources. And when the Israelites got hungry in the dessert, he could have chided them for not being more thankful for freedom, but instead he gave them Manna.

There is a connection between a tribe and abundance. Being open to other people allows the energies of abundance to flow. Isolation is not a posture of abundance.

I know I need to learn this anew every day. And I also think we need to learn this as a nation, as a world. The human tribe needs to step up for a new exodus. -- an exodus of perception. We need to see each other as members of the same tribe, all walking throughour various deserts, all needing each other's help.

When I sit down at the seder, I'll be thinking of the BlogHer tribe, and I'll smile --a smile of hope as I see the glimmer of who we all can become as we care about each other and share each other's journeys.

Check these blogs:
teesygreen gives hints for a green seder and sets out some links for veggie seders and sustainable seder menus.

Julie Wiener provides a great list of things for the non-Jew to know about attending a seder. If you are lucky enough to be invited to this event, her guide will help you know what to expect and will help you avoid embarrassing errors --like bringing leavened bread as a gift.

Jewess reprints an article from a 19th century publication called Ameican Jewess entitled Passover Eve In Petticoat Lane, a description of Passover preparations in 19th century London.