Freedom, This Year

A year ago, I could barely even acknowledge that it was Passover.

We had just gotten up from shiva. I was still reeling from the sudden loss of our dear Eliyahu—my husband of 23 years, my best friend since I was 18, the father of my three incredible boys. Nothing felt real. Nothing felt possible. We were still in shock, trying to process his tragic death in a car accident on his way to the airport to pick up his parents, who had flown in for a family simcha.

And somehow, in the middle of all of that, we were supposed to celebrate Pesach—to show up, to sit at the table, to tell the story.

We went back to Israel just days after returning from there, where we had buried Eliyahu. After sitting shiva in Monsey, I felt I needed to go back again for my kids—especially for Manny, who was five, and whose first experience of Israel had been that trip just days earlier.

I didn’t want Israel to become only that place for him.

The place where Manny said we should bury Eliyahu because it’s the “most special land in the world, and Dad was the most special dad in the world.”

We made that decision because of the pure wisdom in those words. In a moment of shock and heartbreak, they gave us clarity—and we said yes.

I wanted to give Manny something more. To help him build a relationship with Israel that wasn’t defined only by loss, but by something that could live alongside it.

So even though it felt almost impossible, I went to try to create something new—something else to hold onto.

It was hard. Really hard. I was just trying to get through it—breath by breath, day by day.

And in the middle of all of that, there were still moments of beauty—moments that reminded me that life was continuing, even in the depths of grief.

And now, here we are again.

Returning to the same place on the calendar… but as completely different people.

This is the second Passover without Eliyahu.

The first… of the second.

We made it through all the firsts—the first Passover, the first High Holidays, the first birthdays, the first everything without him. The moments that felt impossible. That we thought would crush us.

And yet, here we are, we made it through.

One moment at a time. One day at a time. One step in front of the other.

That’s how we survived this past year.

And maybe… that’s how we survive all the years to come.

Because when I think about a lifetime without him, it’s too much—overwhelming, heartbreaking.

. But I’m not living a lifetime all at once.

I’m living this moment.

This holiday.

This first… of the second.

And that, I can do.

There is something deeply cyclical about Judaism and our holidays. We return to the same story—the same words, the same questions—but we are not the same people telling it. And that changes everything.

On Pesach, we tell the story of slavery and freedom. Of being held tightly in a place we could not escape—and of being led out into something unknown.

And every year, we sit at the Seder table and hold both.

This year, I feel that more than ever.

I feel how much I have changed. Not in a loud or obvious way, but in a quieter, deeper one. I have stretched. Expanded. Learned how to carry things I never imagined I could carry.

And that is where this idea of freedom has been sitting with me—not as something distant, but as something I am slowly, imperfectly growing into.

Because I don’t feel free in the way I once imagined. I am not free from my story, or from the pain, or from the loss. That weight is still here—with me, with my sons, with our families.

But I am also not bound in the same way anymore.

I’m learning that freedom and constraint are not opposites that cancel each other out. They can exist side by side.

At the Seder, we don’t choose between slavery and freedom—we tell both stories. We taste the bitterness, and we lean into the freedom.

And I’ve been living in that space all year: grief alongside resilience, longing alongside becoming, pain alongside meaning.

And maybe that is the real freedom.

Not escaping the story.

Not forgetting.

But being able to carry it—and still move forward.

I am not who I was a year ago.

And I am not yet who I am becoming.

But I can feel something opening.

A little more space.

A little more breath.

And maybe, for now, that is enough.

May we each find our way to freedom this Pesach—not by escaping what has shaped us, but by no longer being held hostage by it.

May we not remain victims of our pain, but instead allow it to refine us and move us forward.

And may the very things that once imprisoned us become what gently, bravely, and powerfully carry us toward a deeper, truer freedom.