DETROIT – Many people around Metro Detroit will be celebrating Passover and Easter this week -- holidays that often bring families together. But the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis will have us missing that physical connection this year.
“At Passover, at Easter, we can look to our holidays, what it means to look at our history and what it means to create a better future,” clinical psychologist Dr. Donna Rockwell said.
The holidays feel much different this week because of the pandemic, but they can still be special times for faith and for families.
“I think it’s important that we come up with our own special rituals this year to celebrate both Passover and Easter, to be creative and innovative and to be led by live and feeling of one another, rather than events or things like the Easter egg hunt, which is nice in its time,” Rockwell said. “We can do these sort of rituals in other ways.”
People have celebrated together over Zoom, and Rockwell said families should do virtual celebrations again for Easter.
“I think what’s really remarkable is how technology has helped us stay together during this pandemic experience,” Rockwell said. “The whole point of Passover is to look at the history of our people. Well that’s true today. We’re all suffering through this situation -- hoping, praying and waiting for a promised day, and that will come at its own time. For Easter, too, there is the idea of resurrection, to recreate the self, to understand the self better and more deeply and connect with one another more deeply. Perhaps this year will have a more profound meaning to us, rather than less of one.”
Rockwell said to learn from this experience and what it really means to be together and to survive something catastrophic together.