Easter Reflections from HFA

The story of Easter - and its companion story, Passover - has been told and retold through generations, each time taking on new meaning for those who hear it. Our interpretations are shaped by where we are in life: a moment of personal joy or sorrow, a diagnosis, a conflict, a fresh start. The lens through which we view these sacred stories is influenced by our present reality, yet they remain rooted in Divine love and enduring salvation that transcends time.

This year, Fellows El and Zoe from Hands and Feet of Asheville, along with our Executive Director Galia, were invited to share a scripture, reflection, or poem that speaks to how they’re experiencing Easter right now. Here in Asheville, our “current moment” is deeply marked by the aftermath of Hurricane Helene and the ongoing climate crisis. Within that context, we hope you’ll find echoes of both grief and resurrection in what they’ve shared.

From El

El shared the following from Chapter 14: Easter of Black Liturgies: Prayers, Poems, and Meditations for Staying Human by Cole Arthur Wiley.

Easter holds memory for a God who came back to life still bearing scars. We’re reminded that we don’t have to leave behind our grief to participate in the joy of liberation. Our scars remain, but we don’t need to dismiss our grief to participate in the joy of liberation. 

On the mountain, God will prepare

a feast for all people. 

On this mountain, God will destroy

the veil that covers all nations. 

God will swallow up death forever,

and wipe away the tears from every face,

and shame will be cast out from all the earth. 

- Paraphrased from Isaiah 25: 6-8

Breathe

INHALE: God is alive.

EXHALE: And God’s breath is freedom.

INHALE: Liberation comes in a body.

EXHALE: I will honor mine.

From Zoe

The Easter tradition is not meant to stay within the four walls of a church on Sunday Morning. Rather, it is meant for the more solemn corners of our communities - in the places that feel forgotten and in moments of simple compassionate action. The compassion shared with our neighbors can be signs of resurrection - especially when a community has been stripped to the bone and is fighting to rise again. 

I have seen new life in certain moments of restoration, when dignity is restored to someone. It is seen when someone is seen and valued and when hope is given space to grow. In these moments of restoration is Easter too.

From Galia

Ring the Bells That Still Can Ring

Now is the season of the Equinox, of Ostara—the moment where day and night hover side by side, in equal balance. Here is the place where we stand in the darkness and turn our faces towards the light. 

This morning, the food at the center of my table is the egg. In my Jewish tradition, the egg means renewal, and the egg also means sacrifice. We are taught that you can’t have one without the other. 

Eggs are eaten at our Passover seder to represent new life. But eggs are also eaten by mourners at the first meal following the funeral of their loved one. And at the final meal before the fast of Tisha B’Av, eggs are dipped in ashes. 

The egg is said to reflect the precise position of the Jewish people at the time of the Exodus from Egypt. A people not yet born because they did not yet know what freedom looked like. 

The egg represents the wheel of life that turns and turns again. The wheel brings everyone their time to be born and their time to die. The egg’s roundness reminds us that God has no beginning and no end. 

On this Passover, I am wondering: Who among us will come home? Who among us will find freedom? How will we protect the innocence of our young, the sacredness of our elders? Will everything we love pass away? Before a future can ever be?

The egg is without seams or breaks. It has no openings and thus represents the mourner, for the Jewish sages had an expression: “Ovel ein lo peh–The mourner has no mouth.” There are times when speech deserts us, because that is what grief demands of us. 

The egg is the harbinger of the world that is yet to come. For new life to emerge, the baby bird creates cracks in its safe and familiar home, pushing itself towards the mystery. The shell is broken and something messy happens. Someone quivering and crying out, someone alien and beautiful is born. The bird leaves its perfect walls of silence. And sings.

This year my Passover prayer for you is a song by Leonard Cohen called “The Anthem.” The song was released the year I was born, on his album “The Future.” Written during the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the 1992 Los Angeles riots, “The Anthem” was inspired by a Kabbalistic concept from Judaism—Tikkun Olam, which means to repair the world. Tikkun Olam traditionally frames the act of world repair as a labor of separating what is holy from what is broken. But “The Anthem” teaches us that the repair comes when we see the holy in the broken—and that we’re strongest where the breaks are. 

I hope you had a Happy Eid, a Happy Passover, a Happy Equinox, and that you have a Happy Easter. I say to you what we say after Passover and before Sukkot, our harvest holiday in the Fall: Moadim l’Simchah—may the times of joy find you, even now.

The Anthem 

By Leonard Cohen

The birds they sang

At the break of day

Start again

I heard them say

Don't dwell on what has passed away

Or what is yet to be

Ah, the wars they will be fought again

The holy dove, she will be caught again

Bought and sold, and bought again

The dove is never free

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack, a crack in everything

That's how the light gets in

We asked for signs

The signs were sent

The birth betrayed

The marriage spent

Yeah, and the widowhood

Of every government

Signs for all to see

I can't run no more

With that lawless crowd

While the killers in high places

Say their prayers out loud

But they've summoned, they've summoned up

A thundercloud

They're going to hear from me

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack, a crack in everything

That's how the light gets in

You can add up the parts

But you won't have the sum

You can strike up the march

There is no drum

Every heart, every heart

To love will come

But like a refugee

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack, a crack in everything

That's how the light gets in

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack, a crack in everything

That's how the light gets in

That's how the light gets in

That's how the light gets in