Losing our Stuff In Egypt This Passover

I can’t help but feel the irony of the Suez Canal being blocked on the eve of Passover. You see the Torah tells us as the Israelites left Egypt they could take only what they could carry. Fleeing Egypt they did not even have time to let bread rise hence eating matzah on Passover. Even as slaves in a strange land people were able to accumulate more material wealth than they could take with them as they traveled through the desert. On Passover, we are grateful for what we have and what was done for us therefore we say “Dayenu”…It would have been enough!

Jews all over the world celebrate Passover tonight. They will eat foods from all over the world on plates and silverware and tables made in foreign countries. Much of the materials probably traversed the Suez Canal at one point. I am no less guilty of collecting material goods from around the world. The laptop I write this on was manufactured on the other side of the globe. This past year has tested my need to travel the globe. I have spent most of the past year in one state, my home state, Florida.

If the past year has taught our society as a whole anything, it is to take nothing for granted! Not the food on our plates or the air we breathe. A little over a year ago at the beginning of the pandemic, I released a four-year-long project the documentary film For Your Grandchildren, A Story of Resistance, which mentions the Cross Florida Barge Canal and how its construction was halted by activists. Four years ago I watched as people locked themselves to a truck and halted construction of a pipeline for hours which crossed a river in North Florida. What feels like a lifetime ago I dedicated myself to working to raise awareness around the dangers of pipelines and large construction projects that would harm the environment.

I now have started a job establishing a farm in Pine Island Florida on the historic land of the Calusa people…