Passover is one of the most symbol-rich holidays in Jewish tradition, and the Seder plate serves as a powerful reminder of the Exodus from Egypt. Each item tells a story of suffering, resilience, and redemption. While many Jewish families arrange their Seder plates in a traditional manner, Sephardic communities often follow a unique and deeply symbolic ritual—placing the maror (bitter herb) at the very center.

This is not merely a matter of aesthetics. It is a profound statement about suffering and growth, one that challenges us to see our struggles as not just part of the human experience but as essential to our spiritual and emotional development. In Sephardic tradition, bitterness is not something to be avoided or merely endured; it is something to be elevated.

Why Place Bitterness at the Center?

Of all the symbols on the Seder plate—the zeroa (shank bone), beitzah (egg), charoset (mortar-like mixture), karpas(greens), and maror—why choose bitterness as the focal point?

On the surface, Passover is about redemption, about moving from oppression to freedom. One might expect sweetness to take center stage. But Jewish wisdom teaches that true freedom comes not from erasing hardship but from confronting it. Maror is not just a reminder of past suffering—it is an active teacher of resilience.

The placement of maror at the center of the plate is a declaration that bitterness is not peripheral to the human experience but central to it. It forces us to ask: How do we deal with life’s hardships? Do we allow bitterness to define us, or do we use it to grow?

Bitterness and the Power of Language

The Hebrew language often reveals hidden connections between words that seem unrelated. The word mar (bitter), which gives us maror, is also the root of mora (teacher). The implication is striking: bitterness itself can be an instructor.

This idea appears in the biblical story of Marah, where the Israelites, after three days in the desert, find water—but it is undrinkable. They complain, and God instructs Moses to throw a tree into the water, making it sweet. What does this teach us? Not that bitterness is meant to be avoided, but that it can be transformed with wisdom, represented by the tree—often understood as Torah itself.

The message is clear: hardship has the potential to nourish us, if we approach it with the right perspective.

How God Heals Bitterness

A remarkable teaching from the Talmud reinforces this idea. Human beings, when faced with bitterness, try to mask it. If coffee is too bitter, we add sugar. If a situation is painful, we distract ourselves with pleasures. But God, according to the sages, heals bitterness with more bitterness.

At first glance, this seems counterintuitive. How can suffering heal suffering? But if we look at human experience, we see that it is precisely through confronting our struggles that we grow. A person who has faced hardship and emerged stronger does not simply forget their pain—they transform it into wisdom, into deeper empathy, into a capacity to teach others.

The Israelites, when they arrived at Marah, were given an important lesson: bitterness itself can be transformed into sustenance. Moses does not remove the bitter waters; rather, he alters their essence by adding something new. Likewise, our own struggles do not disappear, but we can change the way we engage with them.

The Wisdom of Viktor Frankl: Finding Meaning in Suffering

This idea resonates with modern psychology. Viktor Frankl, the renowned psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, built his entire philosophy of logotherapy around this concept. He observed that those who survived Auschwitz were not necessarily the strongest physically, but those who could find meaning in their suffering. If suffering is meaningless, it crushes us. But if it serves a purpose, if it refines us and helps us become better, it becomes a source of strength.

Frankl argued that we cannot always control what happens to us, but we can control our response. If we allow bitterness to consume us, we become stuck in pain. But if we recognize that suffering can be transformed into wisdom, we begin to heal.

Rumi’s Perspective on Welcoming Hardship

The Sufi poet Rumi also offers insight into how we engage with life’s difficulties. In one of his well-known teachings, he compares the human experience to a guest house, where every emotion—joy, sorrow, anger, and grief—arrives like an unexpected visitor.

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Instead of resisting or rejecting the difficult emotions, Rumi encourages us to welcome them, recognizing that they each serve a purpose. Even hardship, he teaches, can clear us out for new growth. Much like the Sephardic custom of elevating maror, Rumi’s wisdom reminds us that suffering is not meant to be avoided but embraced as part of the greater journey of the soul.

Turning Pain Into Torah: The Teaching of Rabbi Hayim Stern

Jewish liturgy echoes this wisdom. Rabbi Hayim Stern, one of the great contributors to modern Jewish prayer books, wrote powerfully about the lessons of grief:

“The psalmist said, ‘In his affliction, he learned the law of God.’ And in truth, grief is a great teacher. When it sends us back to serve and bless the living, we learn how to counsel and comfort those who, like ourselves, are bowed with sorrow. We learn to keep silent in their presence and to know when a word will assure them of our love and concern. Thus, even when they are gone, the departed are with us, moving us to live as in their higher moments they themselves wished to live. We remember them now. They live on in our hearts. They are a blessing.”

Stern’s words suggest that grief, much like maror, is not something to be ignored or pushed away. It is something to be learned from. It is something that, in time, can become a source of wisdom.

A Shabbat Challenge: Embracing Life’s Bitter Moments

As we approach Passover, consider this challenge:

• Reflect on the bitter moments in your life.
• Ask yourself: What can this teach me?
• How can you transform pain into purpose?
• How can your suffering lead to growth, resilience, and ultimately, a blessing?

The Sephardic custom of placing maror at the center of the Seder plate is a call to embrace life’s difficulties, to elevate them, and to see them not as obstacles, but as opportunities for learning and transformation.

If we take the lesson of maror to heart, we might just discover that what we once saw as suffering was actually the beginning of wisdom.

How many words are there in the English language? The answer is approximately 600,000. However, the average person only knows about 25,000 to 30,000 of them. Now, how many words exist in modern Hebrew?

One of my Israeli friends once remarked that Hebrew is a “thin language” with far fewer words than English. In truth, modern Hebrew contains about 90,000 to 100,000 words, yet, just like in English, the average speaker only knows around 25,000 to 30,000 of them.

Now, here’s the astonishing part: How many words are in the Hebrew Bible? The answer varies depending on how one counts, as Hebrew words often share roots, leading to different interpretations. However, the best estimates suggest there are between 6,000 and 9,000 words in the Hebrew Bible—roughly 100 times fewer than in English.

The Thesaurus Game

English, as a vast language, offers numerous synonyms for common words. I recall an exercise from third grade where we attempted to list as many synonyms as possible for the word “big.” There were plenty. Today, let’s try something different—how many synonyms can we think of for “darkness”?

We might come up with words like blackness, gloom, murkiness, and sunless. But despite Hebrew’s limited vocabulary, it offers a surprisingly rich selection of words for darkness. There’s חֹשֶׁךְ (the standard word for darkness), חֲשֵׁכָה (a bitter darkness), עֲרָפֶל (a darkness specifically associated with God’s presence), אוֹפֶל (nightliness), צַלְמָוֶת (a shadow of death), and אֲפֵלָה (a deep, obscure darkness).

One of the most fascinating words is עֲלָטָה, which appears only once in the entire Hebrew Bible, in Genesis. It describes a unique kind of darkness Abraham experienced during the day. This isn’t merely the absence of light but a deeper, more profound form of darkness—one that feels inescapable even when the sun is shining.

The Ninth Plague: A Darkness That Divides

This concept of darkness leads us to a pivotal moment in the Torah—the ninth plague of Egypt. The plague of darkness, חֹשֶׁךְ, wasn’t just a physical absence of light. The Torah describes it as a darkness so thick that “people could not see one another.”

What does it mean that they “could not see one another”? Surely, the Torah isn’t just talking about visibility. It suggests a deeper, more troubling blindness—one where people were so consumed by darkness that they could no longer recognize each other. They were trapped, isolated in their own worlds, unable to move toward one another for three days.

Yet, there was a contrast. While the Egyptians were enveloped in this darkness, the Israelites could see each other. This is a profound lesson: Darkness is not just about an absence of light—it’s about the inability to see our fellow human beings.

A Lesson from King David

Fast forward to another biblical story that illustrates this kind of blindness. Before David became king, he was anointed by the prophet Samuel while Saul still reigned. Naturally, Saul saw David as a threat.

David, fleeing for his life, hid in the caves of Ein Gedi. One day, Saul entered the very cave where David and his men were hiding. David’s men urged him to kill Saul, but David refused. Instead, he stealthily cut off a piece of Saul’s cloak. When Saul left the cave, David called out to him:

“אָבִי, my father, it is I, your servant David!”

Saul, however, couldn’t see him—not physically, but in a deeper sense. He could only see David as a political rival, a usurper, a threat. Even though David stood right before him, pleading to be seen, Saul remained blind.

This is עֲלָטָה—darkness in broad daylight. And this, I believe, is the plague we are living through today.

The Plague We Live In

If we were to ask, “Which biblical plague are we experiencing in our country right now?” I would argue it is the ninth plague—the plague of darkness.

Political polarization has created an environment where two people can be in the same room, even in the same family, yet be unable to truly see each other. Conversations about politics, world events, or social issues devolve into conflict and anger. People refuse to engage with those who hold different views, choosing instead to remain in the comfort of their own ideological darkness.

Some people even prefer the darkness. They thrive on division, finding energy in having an enemy to rage against. This brings to mind the old joke:

A Jewish boy calls his mother and asks how she’s doing.

“Oh, not so well,” she says.

“Why not, Mom?”

“I haven’t eaten all day,” she replies.

“Why haven’t you eaten?”

“Well, I was hoping you would call and take me out to dinner.”

The punchline? “It’s okay, son. I’ll just sit here in the dark.”

Some people are content to sit in the dark—both metaphorically and literally. They do not wish to bridge divides; they would rather nurse their grievances in solitude.

Seeing One Another Again

But what our country needs now is not more people arguing over who is right. What we need is the ability to truly see one another again. To step out of the plague of darkness and into the light of understanding.

How do we do this? By asking each other real, meaningful questions.

Here are three questions you can ask someone whose views are different from your own:

1. What is an experience in your life that has shaped how you see the world?
2. What do you value most in this world?
3. What do you think people most misunderstand about you?

Instead of avoiding difficult conversations, we should be initiating them with these questions. Instead of seeing those who disagree with us as enemies, we should be listening to their stories, understanding their values, and seeking clarity on their perspectives.

Yes, the world is dark. But we have the ability to bring light into the darkness. We can see through the divisions and recognize our fellow Americans, our fellow friends, our fellow family members—not as opponents, but as people.

Let us not be like the Egyptians, trapped in darkness, unable to move toward one another. Let us instead be like the Israelites, who, even in the midst of that darkness, could still see each other.

Because the true plague of darkness is not the absence of light—it is the inability to see one another. And only by striving to see, understand, and listen can we find our way out.