By Rabbi Mendel Rubin
In the two days leading up to Passover this 2025 I spent quite a bit of time with faculty and administration members dealing with one of my Passover religious exemption letters. The issue didn’t involve the holiday dates itself (which the department chair excused) but the travel day back, which was further complicated by the fact that he was celebrating the full Passover with his family, and the family was celebrating in Albany from that state, and took the time and went to the lengths of checking out if it was possible to get back for that afternoon class on the day after Pesach. If so, then some urgency and alacrity was expected of the student to get back as soon as possible.
(In most instances students spend the first days of holiday and back on campus for the rest or for the middle weekday days of the holiday, but some students do spend the entire 8-day holiday away).
In the end, the chair of the department got back to me, (on the Friday afternoon before Passover) excusing the holiday dates is fine, but as the chair wrote me: “student responsible for returning to campus with a degree of urgency that will prevent further class absences, to the extent it is practicable”. The chair actually had personal experience, having once driven back from Albany for that state, and took the time and went to the lengths of checking out if it was possible to get back for that afternoon class on the day after Pesach. If so, then some urgency and alacrity was expected of the student to get back as soon as possible.
While no doubt some will take issue with this professor being a stickler on this and considerations about what our holidays entail – that line about URGENCY in the department chair’s letter jumped out at me!
Indeed, Passover is all about haste, rush and urgency. Alacrity! Our forefathers left Egypt in such an eager haste that the dough on their backs didn’t have time to rise. Unlike bread which is given time to rise, and sometimes rise twice, Matzah is baked in a hurry, under 18 minutes from start to finish. The message is to strike while the iron is hot, not to procrastinate and delay, instead with eager alacrity.
Rabbi Mendel and Raizy Rubin are the directors of Shabbos House - Rohr Chabad Jewish Student Center at at University at Albany.
