Rabbi’s Meditation Before Seder
Thursday 2nd April will be the first day of Pesach, so the night before, we shall be holding our lovely communal seder, starting promptly at 6.30 pm. Make sure that you book your place in good time – seating is strictly limited!
This year, however, our customary Pesach joy may well be muted, as the war between Israel and Iran continues into its fifth week. When we sit around our seder tables, we will be thinking of family or friends who live in Israel, whose sedarim may be disrupted at any time by sirens warning of impending attack, sending them rushing down to their underground shelters or into their safe rooms.
We save a space at our seder for the prophet Elijah, coming with good news of a final redemption for us and the world, freedom from poverty, slavery, and warfare. But in Israel, the empty places at their seder tables will be for family members, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters, who are absent, in danger, called up for military service. I imagine that many seder nights this year will be held at military basesor close to the front line in Lebanon. The sword of the Angel of Deathhangs over Israelis, both soldiers and civilians, until the ultimate and complete victory has been won.
So as we enjoy the beautiful spring weather in England, as we once more taste the matza, maror, and charoset and drink the four cups of wine, let’s not forget the traumatic experience that our brothers and sisters in Israel are forced to go through at this time of war.
Our ancestors in Egypt endured the misery of slavery, from which God released them through miraculous interventions. Today,Israel’s people have had to endure the explicit threat of annihilationthrough missiles and drones, the development of nuclear warheads, and the arming, training and funding of proxy armies that surround Israel on all sides. Their future security depends on their currentability to arm themselves, to fight and to take the battle to the enemy,1,000 miles to the east.
Yet our faith detests war. Our prayers conclude with the heartfelt desire for peace. We cannot stop thinking of the ordinary people of Iran, who daily and nightly endure their own blitz, the destruction of their cities and economy. The ancient Israelites endured 430 years of slavery under wicked Pharaoh. Today’s Persians have endured 27 bitter years of subjection by a wicked totalitarian theocratic government, that threatens, tortures and murders its own people.
Please God, may it end soon, releasing them from their fear and suffering, and giving an ancient people new opportunity and hope. In the Talmud you will find the following little story (Sanhedrin 39b):
“After the Israelites had crossed the Red Sea to freedom, God’s angels wanted to sing a song of praise – but God restrained them, saying: “My creatures have drowned in the sea, and you would sing before Me?”
O God, teach us at Pesach to rejoice in freedom, but not in its cost for us and our enemies. Let there soon come that day when violence is no more, when we will truly be free to rejoice without any sadness, to sing without tears.
Amen.
Rabbi David