As Jews are pushed, pulled, and misread across the political spectrum, the Seder restored the story that refuses to break

This Passover many American Jews are experiencing what can be called a near narrative collapse. By narrative collapse, I mean the loss of a shared story that gives meaning and coherence to our lives, replaced instead by a sense of chaos. By story, I do not mean something fictional or optional. I mean the deep structure that orders a life. Story is memory carried forward, the telling of where we come from in a way that binds us to one another. It is obligation, the sense that the past places a claim on us in the present. It is identity, not as a label but as a lived continuity between generations. And it is hope, the belief that the future is not random, that it can still be shaped by what we inherit and how we respond.

A story does not just describe reality, it often organizes it. It tells us what matters and what does not. It can teach us how to interpret suffering, how to recognize injustice, and how to respond to both. It gives us a language for responsibility, for solidarity, and for restraint. Without it, experience can become fragmented. Events no longer add up in the same way. We can lose not only direction but proportion. Many things can feel immediate, overwhelming, and unmoored.

This kind of collapse is not unique to this moment. It can happen in marriages, families, friendships, romantic relationships, workplaces, in moments of loss, and in the face of death. It is what occurs when the frameworks that once held our sense of self and our understanding of the world begin to break apart. That is what this moment feels like for many American Jews.

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