Bitter and Sweet

This year was the third during which I participated in Seder at Passover, so while I am beginning to be more familiar with ritual celebration, I am still deeply in learning mode. For me that learning inevitably brings reflection on meaning. Last night I noticed aspects that I had missed when I was totally new to the experience.

For those who have not participated in a Seder before, there are certain foods of which we partake to remind us of the flight of the enslaved Jewish people from Egypt. (See "Seder" 4/14/14). For example, unleavened bread is eaten as a reminder that the Jews fled so quickly that there was no time to make, rise, and bake bread.

Last night the message that caught special attention for me was that of the mixture and often juxtaposition of bitterness and sweetness in life. Symbolically, we ate a mixture of bitter herbs (horseradish) and a most wonderful sweet mixture of apples, honey, cinnamon, and walnuts, called charoset.

What really grabbed me is that when a circumstance is generally negative, I often forget to look beyond the bitter to notice the sweet. When I focus on the bitter and ignore the sweet, I rob myself of life sweetness. The nature of my work as an organization development (OD) consultant in my current role is to deal with troubled workplace environments, and I have often forgotten what is working well. (Not all OD is like this!)

Even more remarkable to me is that, as odd as it may seem, the mixture of the sweet and bitter produced its own unique and pleasant flavor. I think for much of my life I was unduly focused only on the positives in life. Now I have swung a bit more in the opposite direction. In either scenario I limit the complex and interesting "flavor" that the combination creates.

In the future I will make it my intention to accept the bitter with grace, look for the sweet with more deliberation, and embrace the richness that the combination brings to my life.


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