Dear friends,
Lisa and I want to wish you all a good Yom Tov, Chag Sameach and Shabbat Shalom. We are busy preparing for our communal 2nd Night Seder making some delicious food with our dear friend Linda, who has been extraordinary!
Pesach is the one festival in which almost the entire community celebrates. But why? Why would a story about our lowliest beginning be the festival we all celebrate? Actually, why do we have such a humble origin-story in the first place?!
Every other people tells us tales of their divine origin. The ancient Greeks, Romans, Persians, and Babylonians all told such stories about themselves being descendants from the gods. Even modern liberal states tell glorious stories of how they were formed. What exactly were the founders of our tradition thinking?!
The answer is quite simple as it is profound. The Jewish People were formed in slavery because that experience was supposed to nurture their capacity for empathy. ‘Because you were slaves in Egypt’ states the Torah more times than anything else, is the reason you must treat the orphan, widow, destitute, and stranger, in your midst with compassionate care.
The Jewish Bible is the first written document in history which describes slavery as wrong. We were the Jewish people saved from the hands of Pharoah according to the story? Not because of anything great about them but rather because slavery is simply wrong. As the good book says ‘and god heard the cry of the people’.
Judaism is thus fundamentally a religion of freedom from oppression. The original, the best, and not at all to be confused with the nonsensical notions espoused by some using this terminology today. It is simply another affront that haters of Jews will usurp a Jewish contribution to hatefully and unreasonably clobber Jews over the head with. Like accusations of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and child killers, the very sins committed against Jews, the Jew-haters take the concept of freedom from oppression and instead of celebrating the culture that came up with the idea, abuse it against the very people whose culture produced it.
It is quite telling that unlike the dogmatic so-called ‘progressives’ (actually an utter contradiction since dogma is the opposite of progress), though the ancient Jews were in fact a terribly oppressed people, we do not constantly remember the suffering of our ancestors in order to wallow in victimhood. Rather to reiterate every year that our culture is one which rates compassion as a highest ideal, second only to freeing ourselves from oppression.
Today we find our people again attacked and vilified in the most atrocious way. We must remind the world and unfortunately some of our own, that our entire culture is founded on anti-oppression. It is not a coincidence that members of the jewish community were by far the staunchest and selfless supporters of the civil rights movement outside of the African-American community. They saw it as a natural extension of their own Jewishness, as did Martin Luther King himself.
I feel very privileged and proud to be part of a tradition which teaches such lofty ideals. I never thought I’d use the word proud because it never struck me that the Jewish People and culture would again become so vilified. I am proud. Not for some egotistical great-by-association reason but for the inspiration I derive from Jewish culture going back more than 3000 years.
We conclude the Haggadah with a proclamation ‘Leshana Haba BiYerushalayim!’ – Next year in Jerusalem. Just as oppression of slavery in Egypt over three millennia ago necessitated the establishment of Ancient Israel, a Jewish country with self-determination built on moral principles, so too the experience of the European and Islamic Jew-hatred which climaxed 80 years ago absolutely required the establishment of Modern Israel, a Jewish country with self-determination built on moral principles.
The prayer ‘Next year in Jerusalem’ is the solid link between the two. It is the proclamation of an ancient indigenous people yearning for their land. Israel is our only Homeland. It was, still is, and always will be. The sooner the enemies of the Jews come to understand this, the sooner we will have peace. But until peace is achieved we will protect ourselves and justly ensure our survival.
May this Pesach see all our hostages returned home from the worst nightmare of Hamas oppression, Amen!
Warmest regards,
Shneur
Rabbi and Founder of Kehillat Neshama