Every year during the Pesach Seder, the festival that celebrates the liberation of the Jews from slavery in Egypt, the question resounds: “Why is this night different from all the others?”. For dozens of families this year the difference will be painful and evident: the absence at the table of one of their children, of their mother, of their father, of a grandfather. Absent because they have been held hostage by Hamas terrorists for almost seven months. Their fate is still unknown, some are known to have died, others there is no news. The initiative promoted by the Committee for the release of hostages is aimed at all of them: a Haggadah (the story of Pesach) dedicated to the kidnapped and carried out in the Kibbutz of Be’eri, among those most affected by the massacres of 7 October.
“While 133 of our brothers and sisters are not yet free, we will gather around the festive table with a special Haggadah dedicated to them”, underlines the Committee in presenting the initiative. To this one publication Rav Israel Lau, former Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel, collaborated among others; Miriam Peretz, Israel Award for her contribution to society; Haim Yellin, former parliamentarian of the Yesh Atid party and among the survivors of Kibbutz Be’eri. And also Jonathan Polin and Rachel Goldberg, parents of Hersh, a 23-year-old kidnapped on October 7 by Hamas from the Re’im festival.
“This year, more than ever in our lives, when we eat the bread of affliction, taste bitter herbs, or imagine what it feels like to be a slave, each act will take on an intensity deeper than we have ever experienced,” they write Hersch’s parents in the introduction to the Haggadah. “This year, these experiences are real for too many of our brothers and sisters. The Seder is designed to provoke and encourage questions.” To the four questions we read about in the Haggadah, this year a fifth has been added for these families: “Why aren’t our loved ones sitting here with us?”.
Keeping hope alive, Jonathan and Rachel write, «is mandatory. This means being part of the Jewish nation. We are a people who never give up. We will carry on until we are free, all of us, in body and soul.”
The evening of Pesach is a moment that unites the Jewish people, underlines Rabbi Lau in his speech. “This year, perhaps more than any other, we long to feel this unity.” For the former chief rabbi of Israel, during the Seder “we not only remember our exodus from the Land of Egypt, or how in every generation there is someone who tries to destroy us as a People”. But it is a time to remember the meaning of freedom.
“What will we tell our children this year?” asks Miriam Peretz. We will talk about “our extraordinary strength and spirit in facing the greatest calamity that has ever hit our state since her birth.” We will talk, continues Peretz, who in the past lost two of her sons in the war, «about our values and our beliefs, about the difference between justice and evil. Of our belief that we do not hate the Egyptians. To find love and peace.”
Tags: OCTOBER Haggadah hostages
