In recent months, I’ve found myself in countless conversations about Jewish futures — where my professional work in strategic foresight naturally intertwines with my identity as a proud member of the Jewish community. These exchanges carry the weight of complexity and uncertainty, tinged with sadness and seriousness. Yet beneath these emotions lies a persistent search for hopeful pathways forward, for meaningful action and for reassurance that our children will inherit a world where they can thrive.

As we collectively navigate this overwhelming moment, two questions emerge again and again: How do we find positive agency amid such complexity? Where can we discover signals of hope strong enough to build upon?

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The answer might be closer than we think. As Passover approaches, I’m struck by how perfectly this holiday offers us a laboratory for exploring these very questions. The Passover Seder offers a framework that brings diverse generations and perspectives into conversation, creating a container for collective meaning-making that is simultaneously structured and adaptive. It offers not just a remembrance and reflection of freedom but a living practice in imagining change.

This year, as we carve out time to clear out the “chametz” (literally and figuratively) to set our Seder tables with intention, we are actively creating conditions for connection and meaning, while also accepting that we can’t fully control what will unfold. In many ways, the Seder teaches us the art of emergence: working with what we know, while welcoming what we can’t yet imagine.

The genius of Passover lies in its ability to collapse time, connecting us to our past while orienting us toward the future. In this way, it offers not just a commemoration of liberation but a recursive practice in imagining transformation — and in these complex times, such imagination may be our most valuable inheritance.

The Passover story is fundamentally an exercise in world-building. Each year, we gather to retell the Exodus narrative, passing it from generation to generation with the instruction to experience it personally: “In every generation, each person must see themselves as if they personally left Egypt.” This act of collective imagination — simultaneously remembering the past while projecting ourselves into it —creates a powerful temporal bridge. When we say “we were slaves in Egypt,” we collapse time, connecting ourselves to ancestors thousands of years removed while simultaneously rehearsing the emotional capacity to envision radical change.

This storytelling tradition isn’t just about the past — it’s inherently future-oriented. The commandment to tell the story “as if you were a slave” asks us to develop empathic imagination, a critical skill for navigating complex futures. By inhabiting multiple perspectives across time, we practice the flexibility of mind needed to navigate uncertainty.

The first of the Four Questions that begin our Seder, “Why is this night different from all other nights?,” establishes a framework of inquiry that invites us to examine context before content. In 2025, this question takes on particular resonance. How is this moment unique? What challenges and opportunities characterize our present? The tradition of questioning invites us to situate ourselves in time and consider how our present moment shapes our understanding of both past and future.

The Seder’s framework of four children — wise, wicked, simple, and unable to ask — provides templates for different modes of engagement with our traditions. But perhaps we might expand this framework to consider what other questioners we need at our tables. What voices and perspectives might enrich our collective imagination about possible Jewish futures? Who needs to be present for conversations about renewal and resilience to be meaningful?

The symbolic objects on our Seder plate function as tangible artifacts that transport us between times. The bitter herbs of slavery, the salt water of tears, the charoset representing mortar — each creates a sensory bridge to the past. What might it look like to create new artifacts that help us imagine Jewish futures? How might we use these traditional symbols as launching points for conversations about the world we hope to build?

Among the most powerful elements of the Seder is the singing of “Dayenu,” a song whose refrain translates to “it would have been enough.” The song recounts the multiple miracles and gifts bestowed during the Exodus journey, affirming after each one: “If God had only done this and nothing more, it would have been enough.”

This concept offers a profound framework for futures thinking. I often see organizations and communities struggle with prioritization — attempting to solve every problem simultaneously, not settling for anything but the perfect answer or becoming paralyzed by the enormity of challenges. “Dayenu” invites a different approach: clarity about what is truly essential, so we can build towards better. 

“Dayenu” isn’t about sacrifice or compromise. Rather, it’s about identifying our first principles — the foundational values that serve as our compass when navigating uncertainty. What is enough? What constitutes the minimum viable future we’re working toward? By naming these essentials clearly, we create solid ground from which to build more ambitious visions.

There’s a liberation in this approach. When we know what “would have been enough,” we can celebrate each incremental step toward transformation while maintaining our orientation toward more comprehensive change. It creates space for gratitude alongside aspiration — a combination that builds resilience for long-term work.

The ritual of opening the door for Elijah embodies a fundamental tension in futures thinking: we maintain hope for redemption while acknowledging its uncertainty. As futurist Bob Johansen aptly notes, “The future will reward clarity, but punish certainty.” Judaism has always balanced this tension — maintaining firm values while remaining adaptable in practice. The tradition of welcoming the stranger and the concept of tikkun olam (repairing the world) invite us to imagine better futures without presuming to know their exact shape.

As I prepare for this year’s Seder, I find myself approaching our traditions with renewed appreciation for their quiet wisdom. The Passover rituals that once seemed like mere customs now reveal themselves as sophisticated tools for navigating uncertainty and planting seeds for a more hopeful future.

This year, as I place the bitter herbs on the Seder plate, I’ll remember that the capacity to taste bitterness is also the capacity to imagine its absence. As I open the door for Elijah, I’ll embrace both the hope of redemption and the humility of not knowing its form. And as I tell the story of our exodus, I’ll recognize that I am not just preserving our past but actively rehearsing the skills of imagining transformation—perhaps the most essential Jewish inheritance of all.

In a world that feels fractured and uncertain, there is profound comfort in knowing that our ancestors faced their own impossible moments and found paths forward. The Seder reminds us that liberation rarely happens in a single moment but unfolds across generations, requiring both the courage to imagine different futures and the patience to work toward them step by step.

The Hagaddah doesn’t end with the conclusion of the exodus story but with the hopeful phrase “Next year in Jerusalem.” This aspirational closing invites us to both celebrate our present moment and imagine a better future — not with certainty, but with clear intention. In that spirit, I invite you to your Seder table not just as an observer of tradition but as an active participant in this ancient practice of collective imagination. For in telling and retelling our story of liberation, we aren’t just remembering who we were; we’re practicing who we might become.

Lisa Kay Solomon is a best-selling author, strategic foresight advisor, award-winning futurist and lecturer at Stanford University’s d.school. Her work focuses on practical approaches to futures-centered leadership that helps leaders build skills of anticipation, imagination and innovation.