LtoR: Ryan Childers, William Hall Jr. & Tyler Trerise in “The Whipping Man”

Let All Who Are Hungry Come and Eat
A Reflection on Passover by Sonja Lowe, TTC Resident Dramaturg

“Behold the mazzah, the Bread of Poverty which our ancestors ate in their affliction, when they were slaves in the land of Egypt. Let all who are hungry come and eat. Let all who are in need come celebrate Pesach. This year we are here, next year we shall be in the land of Israel. This year we are slaves, next year may we be free.”

In Matthew Lopez’s play,The Whipping Man, these words of invitation from the Jewish Haggadah are spoken by a former slave over an impromptu Seder set up inside the charred ruins of a Virginia house. They are the words of the ritual re-telling of the Israelites’ Exodus from Egypt that accompany the annual Passover ceremony.

For thousands of years Jewish households have gathered for the Seder meal to remember their ancestors, once slaves in Egypt now freed by God’s hand. Passover is a ceremony that is central to the Jewish identity and yet it opens with an invitation to all the world. All who are hungry, all who are in need, all are welcome at the table…and all are promised freedom.

In The Whipping Man, the men gathered in this destroyed house are painfully divided. White and black, former slaves and a former slave holder, they bear the scars of slavery and the trauma of battle; and they know all too well what the “bread of poverty eaten in affliction” tastes like. The tension in the air around this Passover meal is burdened with bitterness, with guilt, with tears for the past and fears about the future. The broken relationships in the room reflect the divided nation around them, and yet…and yet… the words of the Haggadah proclaim that they are all welcome.

Watching this ceremony unfold on our stage is incredibly moving for me as a Christian when I recall that this ceremony is the basis for the Church’s communion rite. It was during a Passover meal that Jesus offered His body as the bread and His blood as the wine. It was His sacrifice that flung open the doors and invited all to the feast at God’s table. A seat at the table is Christ’s gift to us.

In The Whipping Man, a gift of hope is offered in a seat at the Passover table with its invitation “Let all who are hungry come and eat.” Despite their offenses against each other, despite their doubts about God, and despite their reticence to sit together, The Whipping Man offers a ray of hope for future healing while reminding us that healing requires work. No one is forced to sit at the table.