More than 100 people celebrated the holiday of freedom with us this year — two Seders at our shul and two additional model Seders, one for the Greenport Ecumenical Ministries (GEM) and another at San Simeon By The Sound. Passover doesn’t mean only to pass over, but to pass over to our children the knowledge and, most importantly, the feeling, that freedom is a constant work.

Real freedom means to keep an order. Even free-spirit creativity needs order. Creativity without order is chaos. I’m often reminded of this concept when I download a new app on my phone. All of a sudden, the location of all the other apps shifts, and I have to learn the new order. That is why it’s important on Passover to change something and then ask, “Ma Nishtana” — what is the difference?  That is why it’s important to know the apps and to recognize them, not just the order in which they appear. We don’t keep the order for the sake of order; we keep it for the sake of learning.

This time of year, we also commemorate the Holocaust. The juxtaposition is not accidental.  The date was set to correspond with the start of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising: April 19, 1943, the 14th of Nissan, the eve of Passover — Seder night.  The holiday of freedom inspired the Jews there not simply to ask, “What is the difference,” but to make a difference. The uprising failed at the time, but its message continues to reverberate today.  In Israel,  Holocaust Remembrance Day is called “Yom Hashoah Ve-Hagevurah,” which means “Day for the Holocaust and the Heroism.” The heroism refers to all the acts of resistance during those years, the biggest being the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto.

But since it would be inappropriate to commemorate this day at the same time we are celebrating Passover, the date was set as close as possible, on the 27th of Nissan — a week after the end of Passover. It is also a week before the State of Israel’s Independence Day, which is on the 5th of Iyar, just hours before the end of the British Mandate of Palestine on May 15, 1948.

It seems as though freedom and independence have a pattern. Consider the ancient Israelites, whom we remember on Passover. They eventually broke out of slavery, but many died in the darkness of Egypt. Others experienced years in the desert before gaining independence in the land of their dreams. Somehow, before breaking free, we go through deep darkness before arriving at “the promised land.”

At this year’s East End Jewish Community Council’s Holocaust Memorial Service, we heard Rabbi Sholom Friedmann, the director of the
 Amud Aish Memorial Museum, relay stories of spiritual resistance in the concentration camps when rabbis and
 observant Jews had to handle impossible situations while trying to adhere to Jewish law. For example, can someone sacrifice his or her life in order to save someone else?  Or can one choke a crying baby in order to save the rest of the family in hiding?

We also listened to the moving story of Margo Lowry, a member of the North Fork Reform Synagogue, whose parents lost nearly all of their family and then their first child, but never lost their dignity and humanity.  Margo concluded her story with the immortal words of Elie Wiesel, may his memory be for a blessing, that suggest that the first act of resistance is remembering: “Forgetting is Not an Option!”

In good hopes for the new month.