The opening shot of the Jewish-Arab conflict over this land was heard on the first day of Chol HaMoed Passover 104 years ago, in Jerusalem.
The roar of the threatening crowd was heard from afar. Jewish worshippers in the alley of the Western Wall quickly folded their prayer shawls and fled breathlessly toward their homes. The Arabs in the markets of the Old City shuttered their shops, and on the street below Jaffa Gate, Aref al-Aref, who would later become mayor of east Jerusalem, spoke: "Palestine is our land. The Jews are our dogs."
One Hebron sheikh shouted "Slaughter the Jews," and an Arab mob armed with sticks, knives, and swords rushed into the alleys, set shops on fire, raped women, and wounded and killed Jews. This was the Oct. 7 version of 1920 – about a hundred years before the Iranian onslaught on us.
What has changed this Passover from that Passover? It has changed! A lot has changed! This Passover is different from that Passover and from many Passovers that preceded it. The chapters that our ancestors wrote, especially those collected into the Passover Haggadah, are chapters about a people born without a protective force and land, chapters of sanctuary and destruction and persecution and exile, while the chapters we write in recent generations are chapters of revival and sovereignty and heroism and independence and the ingathering of the exiles here, on the soil of the homeland, in the Land of Israel.
The chapters that our ancestors wrote in the Passover Haggadah are chapters in which a divine power does the work for us in a miraculous way. The chapters we have been writing since the events of 1920 are chapters of those who do not rely on the miracle, but cause it to happen, bring it down to earth.
There are potholes and pits and ups and downs and disasters and failures such as the colossal one just seven months ago, which in essence is indeed all but identical to the "Slaughter the Jews" rampage in the alleys of old Jerusalem a hundred years ago. But the resemblance is mainly between the enemy of then and the enemy of today. We, on the other hand, are already in a completely different place. This month of revival, between Passover –the Independence Day of the Jewish people, and the month of Iyar – the Independence month of the State of Jews, illustrates this more than anything.
Acrobatics in time
It opens indeed with a story of exile – but ends with a story of revival. It begins with a story of absolute dependence on God, who grasped us by the forelocks of our heads and took us out of Egypt almost against our will – and ends with the story of taking our fate into our own hands and, while believing in the Rock of Israel and his Redeemer, understanding that we must act to bring about the miracle, and not rely on the miracle coming from the heavens. "In every generation, they rise against us to destroy us," and God will save us from their hands only if we take our fate into our own hands, and not be content with waiting for a heavenly miracle.
We have traveled a long and winding path from Passover 1920 to Passover 5784, and the Jewish code still demands of us every year to write a continuation of the story, to show and see ourselves each time anew as if we ourselves are leaving Egypt. To live the present in the past and to integrate the past into the present. There is no other people who are commanded to engage in such acrobatics in time. There is no other people who are required to speak at the same time in two languages, seemingly contradictory, and to embed them in each other.
The contemporary rabbi and theologian Professor David Hartman, of the liberal stream of Orthodox Judaism, pointed out at the beginning of the 21st century that the belief in miracles – like those performed for the children of Israel in Egypt – is "the basis for the model of hope in Judaism": "The Exodus," he explained, "seeks to instill in us a revolutionary hope... The Exodus is essential, for it allows us to hope. The order in the cosmos is not immutable. Tomorrow need not be as today... The language of the miracle is the Bible's way of undermining the deterministic attitude of people who accept the world as it is, without faith in their power to change it.
"The story of the Exodus," Hartman explains, "instills in us the belief in a new tomorrow. Life is not reduced to an endless cycle that cannot be changed. If the Exodus is possible – then everything is possible. Jewish history begins with a revolution, and from then on history is an open book. This is the idea of messianism: the belief that everything can still be turned upside down from one extreme to the other, and in the end, it will be good," even against the Iranians, even against Hamas.
This vision is also relevant to the reality in which we find ourselves this Passover. Everything is open. Everything is changeable and depends mainly on us. The birthday of the Jewish people marks the great reform in the history of humanity, a reform that breathed winds of hope and revolution into other peoples and societies. Heinrich Heine said that since the Exodus, freedom speaks with a Hebrew accent. It was indeed a genetic code only for us, but it inspired many revolutions in the world. It symbolizes hope and teaches that things can turn from one extreme to the other even when everything seems lost, that it is possible to change, that if the Exodus with all its incredible miracles was possible – then everything is possible.
This revolution also vividly illustrates what Rabbi Jonathan Sacks used to call "the power of the weak and the weakness of power." Our history is full of incredible revolutions that expressed the power of the weak, even against dictates and pressures from great and hostile powers even stronger than the United States.
"In every generation, one is obligated to see oneself as if he himself went out of Egypt," the Haggadah commands us, and this quintessentially Jewish commandment is intended to prevent us from sinking into the present, from despising the future and from disconnecting from the past. This is the code whose role is to balance the sense of the obvious of "here I was born, here my children were born."
This feeling is related to the fundamental debate we have with the enemies around us. Behind the bitter disputes over refugees, territories, and occupation, lies the debate over continuity and historical memory. The real question is: Will the Palestinians and the Arab states ever recognize that our presence here is a presence of continuity, not a presence of a passer-by? If there is a glimmer of a chance that this will happen, it is conditional on first honoring our Jewish roots and our uniqueness here. Only then, perhaps, will others also recognize the right, the connection, and the continuity.
The Passover Seder is an antidote against forgetting, just as the future "Independence Day Seder," which one day will be instituted here – the chapters we have written since 1920 and those yet to be written – is an antidote of the same kind, an antidote against forgetting.
The maxim, "In remembrance lies the secret of redemption" attributed to the Baal Shem Tov, which is engraved on Holocaust memorials, should this year be engraved on the gates of the Gaza border communities as well.
This is how Judaism has also dealt with "Remember what Amalek did to you" of those days, and this is how it is proper to deal with "Remember what Amalek did to you" of these days. This is how we have dealt with the story of the Exodus from Egypt of those days, and this is what we should also do with the story of our exodus from slavery to freedom in the State of Israel of this time. To remember, in order not to sink into the comfortable and dangerous reality of the obvious.
