My Passover Haircut

This weekend, along with Jews around the globe, of all religious denominations, I undertake the metaphysical metamorphosis from slavery into freedom. I am also hoping this is hopefully my last Covid/Corona post. Coming out of Egypt has never felt so real.

For just over a year we have been living in/with/surrounded by a pandemic. And now, at least here in Israel, we are done. Done with all the strange, almost imperceptible changes of habit and mind that have taken us over this past year.

I’m hoping that I am soon done with all the negative commandments of Covid. I’m done with not visiting loved ones, and not taking public transportation, and not traveling on airplanes, and not eating in restaurants, and not sending my children to school. I’m done with not going to gym, and not going to the movies, and not going shopping, not going to bars, and not going to restaurants, and not going to concerts or plays or large public gatherings.

I’m also hopefully soon done with all the positive commands of Covid. I am especially feeling done with wearing a mask (still a requirement here but hopefully not for too long). Done with incessant washing of hands. Using hand sanitizer. Getting Covid tests. Getting more Covid tests. Getting antibody tests. Getting a vaccine.

I’m also done with thinking that touching other people, even being within two meters of them, is dangerous. I’m done with worrying that every sore throat is a sign of plague. I’m done with worrying that someone around me will get sick. I’m done with worrying that I’ll get sick. I’m done with actually getting Covid, and being sick, and living in that awful long tail of depression and fragility and hair falling out and exhaustion and worry about my heart rate and worry about if and when my sense of smell will return and…and…just worrying, all the time, if things will ever get back to normal.

Because now I understand that what I used to perceive as just normal, I now understand was not just normal. It was better. It was actually freedom. Sitting in a cafe, and drinking a cup of coffee, and shopping in a crowded mall, and going to concerts and playing sports and all of these things are not just normal, they are the things we do with freedom. Freedom of movement. Freedom from fear. Freedom to chose where to go and who to see and who to hug and where to eat and all the thousand small breaths of freedom that we experienced every day, and that thankfully, we are starting to experience again.

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I marked today with a haircut, my first in over year, save the moment six months ago when I took some household scissors and chopped off my split ends in a symbolic act of purging and desperation.

Today, while carefully snipping away, the Israeli barber in jeans and a black t-shirt tells me I poked my head in at just the right time, as it was his only unbooked 15 minutes today. We chat in Hebrew. “Don’t worry about your accent,” he says to me. “In this neighborhood, there are many people with accents. French accents, Russian accents, American accents. So just keep speaking. The accents don’t bother us.”

Will I always speak with an American accent? There are some parts of being from a place, that are not so easy to leave. Our clothes, we can change. Our habits, we can change. Even our language, we can change. But an accent, an accent is very, very hard to change.

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And so as we head out of Covid, out of Egypt, I am left wondering, what will remain? Will I remember what it was like to not have freedom? To not have the freedom to travel where I wanted, when I wanted? To not be able to hug or even shake hands with whomever I wanted? To not be able to choose my entertainment, or even where to eat dinner?

And what about the good parts of Covid? The ample time for family? The invitation to ask deep questions? For me, as for many, this past year brought much creative looking inward. Was that slavery, or was that actually freedom? Was the past year’s forced introspection, and forced restrictions, and forced dwelling in a narrow place, actually a gift? Without Egypt, can we perceive that “normal” is actually a daily experience of freedom that we only fully appreciate once it has been taken away?

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I would rather not be scarred by all those years in Egypt. I would rather not always speak with an accent, so everyone knows where I come from home and presumes to know something about who I am.

Also, the future is unknown. We have a sea to cross. And then a desert. No food, save some flatbreads we have hastily baked. No water. No clothes for our children when they grow.

But with family, and friends, and faith in the G-d of plagues, we can only move forward. We can pursue the hope that has guided refugees everywhere and throughout time: that whatever is ahead will be better than what we are leaving behind.

Happy Passover to all. Travel safe.