Emerging late last evening from two days of religious seclusion for the start of Passover has been exhilarating.

If you ever participated in a religious or business retreat, you have tasted one transitory drop of our miraculous immersion in the sui generis regality of Jewish tradition.

For the first 48 hours of the seven-day Passover holiday – from sundown Sunday until darkness last evening – we withdraw from the so-called real world.

The angry news stories that relentlessly swamp our daily lives vanish.

• We turn off televisions for the duration,
• Shun newspapers and daily mail,

• Turn on the necessary lights before the prescribed hour.

This is the most participatory  holiday on the Jewish calendar, probably because it is centered in our homes rather than in the synagogue or other public venue.

When we sat down at our First Seder shortly after 9 o’clock on Monday evening, an instant transformation came over us:

Scenes of scripted professional  protestors vilifying Donald Trump’s presidency disappeared from our minds.

The clatter was replaced by true history, the painstakingly recounted escape of Jews from 210 years of Egyptian slavery under the oppressive reign of the evil Pharaoh 3½ millennia ago.

In the most traditional Jewish homes, we closely recall our pain and joy in fleeing a known environment and entering a frighteningly unknown world.

This is why traditional seders span a minimum of four hours.

You may be weary, but the identical tableau is repeated the following evening at the Second Seder.

In retelling The Story, we are to imagine that we are slaves in Egypt. Each person gathered around the table takes his turn at reading from the historical account known as a haggadah.

Fleeing the Pharaoh and his troops, when we reached water’s edge at the Red Sea, G-d executed a miracle. He parted the waters for us to escape. When Pharaoh and his boys rode into the waters, the normal flow was restored. The pursuers drowned.

Following a circuitous route to the land G-d created for Jews, we began a 40-year journey

Anyone in Newspaperland who is religious will understand the transition from the stultifying atmosphere of mud-drenched everyday politics to the unimaginable purity of G-d’s miracles 3,400 years ago, setting the Jews free from choking oppression.

If history does not change, neither does contemporary life.

After two days away from newspapers, we checked last evening. Mr. Trump still is president. Democrats still are desperate.

One More Time

On Sunday evening, we enter the final 48 hours of Passover