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Celebrating the holiday of freedom amid the hostage crisis is difficult – Israel News

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Dear hostage families,

Everything you have taught us during these six torturous months can be summed up in one Biblical phrase: Vayima’ein l’Hitnachem – “He refused to be comforted.” You dedicate every moment to advocating, traveling, and speaking on behalf of your loved ones, putting your own life on hold. You have shown what true dedication to family looks like. It’s a lesson we desperately needed, and we hope we’ve started to learn it.

Your devotion to your loved ones has inspired an extraordinary wave of love and devotion within the Jewish family and beyond. In a world of unspeakable cruelty, you are symbols of compassion. At a time when our nation was on the brink of self-destruction because of its internal differences, you reminded us of the core principle of enduring brotherhood. You will be on our thoughts and on our lips this Passover as we gather with our diverse families, all four sons, to remind ourselves of who we are, our shared past and our common destiny.

We will think of you as we perform the very first distinguishing act of the seder, the immersion of the karpas vegetable in salt water. Rabbi Eliezer Ashkenazy suggested in the 16th century that this immersion be performed at the beginning of the seder, as a reminder that the proximate cause of our exile in Egypt, the very beginning of the Passover story, was the sale of Yosef (Joseph). into slavery by his jealous brothers. Although the brothers had no love for Yosef, they had to address their father’s attachment to him, and so they took his multi-colored cloak, dipped it in the blood of a goat, and presented it to their father as proof of Yosef’s apparent death. They thought this would work – that Yaakov (Jacob) would see it, grieve and then move on. They were wrong. Vayima’ein l’Hitnachem – “He refused to be comforted.” Days turned into weeks, months and years, and Yaakov continued to grieve because family is forever.

The brothers, in their betrayal of Josef, had tried to run away and not look back, but they couldn’t. Yaakov’s unrelenting grief taught them the meaning of a lasting relationship and led them to take the opportunity of the famine to seek out Joseph in Egypt. Long before Moshe (Moses) appeared and frogs were jumping everywhere, Joseph’s choice to embrace his brothers and choose a lasting relationship over resentment and revenge was the first phase of our redemption in Egypt.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews prepare Matzah, traditional unleavened bread eaten during the 8-day Jewish holiday of Passover, in Jerusalem on April 9, 2024. (credit: CHAIM GOLDBEG/FLASH90)

From betrayal to loyalty

That redemption would culminate when each family would dip itself in the blood of the Passover sacrifice, place it on the doorway of their family home, and then remain safely in that home and participate in the family’s original Passover Seder. As the Egyptian homes around them saw their future crumble due to the plague of their firstborn sons, the Jewish home was restored as the safest and most enduring structure in our lives – a place where family gathers, communicates, shares their story and builds. lasting loyalty. That, Rabbi Ashkenazy taught, is symbolized by the second immersion of the seder, which is performed after the reading of the Haggadah, defining the evening as the journey from betrayal to loyalty.

WHEN THE HAGGADAH of October 7 is written, the text may begin with border violations, Hamas and Nir Oz, but it will have its own immersion of the karpas, referring to the frightening internal hatred and distance that grew within the Jewish family prior to the war . that date. We will painfully remember how we, Jews, were able to renounce brotherhood and sisterhood, to walk away from defending one another, and to plow ahead and deal with our own needs and fears without regard to the needs and fears of others. We will note with shame how little devotion to the Jewish family seemed to matter.

But then October 7 came and we met all of you – the parents and children, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, and cousins ​​shemi’anu lehitnachem, who refused to be comforted. You taught us what family means, what loyalty means. You have shown us that we are Klal Yisrael and that we can never go back to the internal hatred and distance of October 6.

This Passover, many seder tables around the world will have empty chairs to serve as memories of your beloved family members; others will display their posters and photos. But we will all appeal to your example—to your refusal to be comforted and your continued devotion to your family. And each of us will need to model that example in the way we live and interact with both our biological brothers and sisters and our Klal Yisrael brothers and sisters in general.

Once upon a time, long ago, we sold one of our brothers into slavery in an attempt to exclude him from our lives and our story. Once upon a time, not so long ago, we had a battle with some of our brothers and sisters in an attempt to keep them out of our lives and our story. Too often we ignore some of our brothers and sisters and ignore their significance in our lives and our stories.

You have made us realize that we cannot and should not do that anymore. You continue to teach us this by your refusal to be comforted.

L’shana haba’ah b’Yerushalayim habnuyah, k’ir shechubra la yachdav – “Next year in a rebuilt Jerusalem, a city full of brothers and sisters firmly connected to each other,” and united in a nation, with your loved ones at home .

The writer, a rabbi, is executive vice president of the Orthodox Union.



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