“And you shall teach your child on that day….”
Israeli educator Rabbi Mishael Zion writes of the first seder he conducted in 2002. He was a 21-year old IDF soldier, serving in Rafah-the border between Egypt and Gaza. Home on leave for the holiday, he spent hours and hours with his father, Rabbi Noam Zion, preparing to lead. And then, he writes: “When we finally sat down to the meal, my uncle pulled me aside and said: “There has been a Hamas suicide bombing at the Park Hotel seder in Netanya. Should we tell everyone?” At that moment the joy of the holiday was turned to mourning.” It was also the first year that I celebrated seder in Jerusalem.
Two years later, in 2004, the first version of their remarkable haggadah, A Night to Remember: The Haggadah of Contemporary Voices (The Israeli Haggadah) was published. And almost 20 years later, they had gathered a group of scholars and writers and illustrators and educators to create a new edition, written for a new generation of parents and children. And then, just after that effort had kicked off: October 7. Like every parent, educator, rabbi, and Jew, Rabbi Zion was wondering: what does seder look like after October 7? What does it mean to celebrate our freedom when our brothers and sisters are in captivity? What does it mean to rejoice when our hearts are broken? Turning to the kibbutz haggadot written over 70 years ago by the founders of the very same kibbutzim attacked on October 7, he was moved by the idea that, as he writes, “…the power of the Exodus is not only in the covenant of common fate that we forged, but also a covenant of destiny.”
But more than that, he writes:
In the end it all comes back to the family
table. …The Haggadah reminds us that
our family story is always a combination
of two things: the memory of the bread of
affliction that our ancestors ate in Egypt
and the commandment to believe that next
year we will be free people.
This year, our Haggadah supplement, which we will share in the Daily Kavannot of Passover, was inspired by the foundational commandment of the Exodus: “You shall teach your child on that day… In these pages are reflections on the transformative work of teaching the power, lessons, and promises of the seder.”
We hope you find inspiration, challenge, and seder table conversation in these words from your clergy, and we wish you all a chag sameach v’kasher, a joyous and meaningful Passover.
— Rabbi Sari Laufer
