Below is a thought that can be read as an intention before the eating of the maror (bitter herbs) during the seder:
Nobody likes to feel pain and discomfort, and so it’s natural that we do everything we can to avoid them. But the thing is, often that avoidance actually increases our suffering and keeps us stuck in it. What we resist, persists.
So there is wisdom here in how the Haggadah approaches the maror, this symbol of our bitterness and distress and suffering. Instead of trying to avoid or deny what is hard for us, we say a brachah (blessing) over it, and willingly agree to experience the bitterness — the discomfort — in our bodies. We thereby become agents in our own suffering as we approach it with an open, accepting, even honoring stance. This difficult experience, too, is part of God’s world, we say. This, too, we honor from a place of strength and courage and sometimes even lightness. We can handle this. I know in our seders, the discomfort of eating something intensely bitter becomes a bit of a game, a challenge that is an opportunity for fun and adventure. I wonder if this maror experience could become a model for us of how to approach the pain – both physical and emotional – that we habitually attempt to avoid, a model of empowering ourselves to orient towards all discomfort with that same sense of willingness, honoring, challenge and adventure.
So right now as we say a brachah over the eating of the maror and open ourselves to the taste of bitterness in our mouths and bodies, maybe practicing that motion of allowing and honoring the discomfort, and getting curious about what it actually feels like in our bodies instead of bracing against it. Bookmarking this maror experience as a way of orienting towards pain and discomfort more generally. What do fear and anxiety and shame and sadness feel like as physical sensations in our bodies? Could we actively honor and welcome them as we do the maror? Turning to the maror now and letting yourself intentionally fully enter the experience and bless it. .
Image by liza summer at Pexels
