Sometimes, I think in our re-experiencing of the Passover and Exodus story, we re-tell the story, and we try to relate to it in our contemporary lives, but the gap is wide and not easily bridged. We might be able to move it from a personally lived experience into a thinking exercise, but thinking about it and experiencing the real courage (and fear) of moving out of captivity and into freedom are two very different perspectives.
While it isn’t entirely wrong to keep it in the head and at arms’ length, I want to challenge us each to find a stronger, deeply personal, connecting point this year.
Many months ago we made the decision to pay for the live stream option with Netflix. In so doing, I have found a diverse range of shows quite different from those on the major usual networks. (Who knew Netflix was doing such a thing? Plus there is the major advantages of binge watching and no commercials!) And this is the point where a TV sitcom created and produced by Tina Fey comes into our discussion about Passover: The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.
The story begins with Kimmy Schmidt, a woman from rural Indiana, emerging from an underground bunker where she has been captive for 15 years by the leader of a doomsday cult, Reverend Richard Wayne Gary Wayne. The “good reverend” had convinced Kimmy and three other girls that the apocalypse had arrived, and their only safe haven was life in this underground bunker with him. It was obviously an abusive life, where they were forced to do labor, to remain captive, and to do who knows what for the reverend. Upon their eventual finding and release, the media referred to them as the “Indiana mole women.”
Fueled by her resilience and positive nature, Kimmy decides to take the $13,000 that she received from the “mole women” fund, and travel to New York City to make a new beginning. Kimmy was around the age of 15 when she entered the bunker. After 15 years, Kimmy has a lot of relearning ahead of her. Life in the bunker took the prime of her life, from the age of 15 to 30. In the first season, Kimmy learns to adapt to life in the 21st century.
I love the theme song, although it loops in my head. But of all the songs to loop in an ear worm, this is a good one.
“Unbreakable! They’re alive, dammit! It’s a miracle! Unbreakable! They’re alive, dammit, females are strong as hell!”
(The one minute 47 second Songify version of the theme song can be heard here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CV9xF8CjhJk)
This theme song is a good way to keep foremost in my mind that I am unbreakable. If I weren’t, I would not be here. I’m only breakable when I allow myself to believe I’m not unbreakable. But the real truth is that I AM unbreakable.
Most likely, the worst things I’ll ever have to face in this lifetime are already behind me, and that’s where they can be left, just like Kimmy does. I cannot keep driving forward if I only look in the rear view mirror. Really, there isn’t much worse I will ever have to go through ahead of me than I’ve already been through. That’s good news! I’m alive, dammit, and it’s a miracle! And I am unbreakable, because females are strong as hell! THAT is the essence of the Exodus!
The show is empowering, and yes, directly applicable to a particular 18 years of my life. While I was not held captive in an underground bunker for 15 years, there is much that resonates in this show. I watch is as a comedic way to keep processing, keep moving forward. I can be my own superhero just like Kimmy is her own in the show. She digs deep as she re-learns and holds onto her resiliency and positivity. Her resilience shines bright, if not a bit quirky and goofy, even as she tries to fill in the gaps of the 15 years she lost of a normal life, and in New York City at that.
Here are a few of the pithier “Kimmy quotes” that resonate for me:
Life beats you up. You can either curl up in a ball and die, like we thought Cyndee did that time, or you can stand up and say, ‘We’re different, We’re the strong ones, and you can’t break us.’
We’re just covering up our problems. In order to fix ourselves, we have to start right here. Find that small unbreakable you inside yourself.
You get to live your life the way you want. That’s the whole point of not being in a bunker. No one gets to tell you what to do.
Every one of these quotes applies to our Passover story. And every one applies to my own life.
The point here is that I encourage each of us to find a way to make Passover PERSONALLY relevant and meaningful. Not just in the general ways of the oppression we see in the world, and not just in the wish for a world of freedom and peace. In other words, stop looking at it from a general point of view, an arm’s length point of view. Zoom it in up close and personal. Find a way to feel and experience being a captive and then having the courage to leave it behind. What has that been for you? What up close and personal experience do you have that resonates with our Passover story?
While we end our seder with the wish for “Next year in Jerusalem!”, may we begin our Passover this year with “This moment, in our hearts.”
What is your personal passage from slavery and oppression and captivity? How are you strong and unbreakable? What is your miracle? What is that small unbreakable you inside yourself?
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