During Passover, we discussed the meaning of placing a roasted egg on the Seder plate. A burnt egg can be interpreted to represent the suffering endured by the Hebrews during slavery in Egypt. The roasted egg also has a broken shell. This can demonstrate the fragility of life and hopefully inspire an appreciation for the blessed moments we’re given.
At this year’s Seder, a friend who had never celebrated Passover asked me an interesting question: Do you boil the egg before it is roasted, or is it raw? It raised the thought: Are you raw or are you ready? Let’s explore the egg – in its broken form.
There is a context to whether or not a broken egg is good or bad. If you have a raw egg in the kitchen and you drop it, the egg shell breaks and the egg is lost. It is forever broken. You cannot simply gather the yolk and white and put it back in the broken shell. (As the nursery rhyme goes, Humpty Dumpty cannot be put back together again!)
However, there is another context when the broken egg shell is the not the end of life, but rather the beginning of life! If it is a baby bird hatching from its shell it is a beginning. A bird hatching is a truly celebrated event marking the evolution of life.
Thus, at this Passover, I looked at the roasted egg on the Seder plate, and asked our Seder participants: “Are you raw or ready?” Are you in a raw state where your shell is delicate and needs full protection and security? Or are you ready? Ready to break out of your shell and enter the next phase of your life to encounter the world without a protective barrier.
This topic reminds me of a beautiful haiku written by the Haikuists:
The heart is an egg
All this time it thought was life
Then it cracked open
