Dear Friends,
In these days of the Hebrew
month of Nissan we direct
our hearts and open our arms
to receive another
celebration of Passover:
-
hearts, to rejoice in
our liberation as a People
from the yoke of slavery in
Egypt;
-
arms, cleaning the
chametz from our homes,
preparing the house for the
Seder, and practicing all
the rituals of this holiday.
Pesach, with its magical
family call to reunion,
returns us in such a
perfectly natural way -
perhaps more than any other
Jewish holiday - to the
delight and appreciation of
our being Jewish, mixing an
enjoyable reunion with our
loved ones with an occasion
for national memory and
strengthening of our Jewish
identity. Reading the
Haggadah brings us back more
than 3300 years, to the
plagues and our freedom, to
our redemption as a People.
We recall our surge to
freedom through singing of
psalms and piutim -
poems, and we welcome the
fact that we are now free -
more than ever so in our
glorious time of an
independent Jewish State.
As with Purim - when we
usually forget that the
Jewish people actually had
to fight against not only
Haman, but also his
followers, killing more than
75,000 of them -- on Pessach
we tend to ignore we did not
always live under an
oppressive regime in Egypt.
Out of the hundreds of years
that the Benei Israel
dwelled in that land[1]
- from the establishment of
Yaacov and his children in
times of Yosef[2]
- many[3]
became prosperous, a
recognition of Yosef's
outstanding achievements
which made Egypt a great and
powerful kingdom. The Jews
lived at first in Eretz
Goshen, a good and fertile
land, and maintained their
Jewish identity and faith in
one God despite living in
the generally accepting and
attractive milieu of pagan
Egypt.
We have clear historical
evidence of how assimilation
grew among the members of
our people in times of
general acceptance - as it
occurs today in the free
world. So what were the
reasons that the Children of
Israel in those days kept
their Judaism?
Rabbi Yaacov Culi[4]
- usually known for his
work, "Me'am Lo'ez" written
in Ladino, answers this
issue: "... the Jews stayed
away from the Egyptians and
were distinguished by
-
their special garments...
-
their language [Hebrew]
-
their Name [Hebrew]
-
and their Law,
which remained unchanged
during their stay in Egypt."[5]
In other words, the Jewish
people did not assimilate
into the great Egyptian
culture because they
maintained key elements of
their Jewish specificity.
These were sufficiently
meaningful and valuable to
be maintained and
transmitted to future
generations - even under the
pressure of slavery and
discrimination.
In an era in which we are
constantly invited to
discard "the burden" of our
being Jewish and thus join
the general society -
especially in these days of
increasing anti-Semitism,
when the world seems to be
resuming its most virulent
verbal attacks against us...
What are the elements of our
being Jewish that we guard
and preserve in order to
keep our Judaism alive and
relevant and specific to our
People and our families?
Our opportunities for this
are in fact many, and all
are intrinsically valuable:
a permanent and active
relationship with the State
of Israel - at its best, to
actually join ourselves
through aliyah with the
destiny of the Jewish State;
an active community life in
our Maccabi Territorial
Organizations and in the
Jewish Community at large;
the Jewish ritual in the
family; study of our
timeless sources and
practice of its teachings;
individual and group prayer
in the synagogue; leadership
of Jewish-Zionist
organizations in our
country... the
possibilities are endless,
and all complement one
another, thus multiplying
the opportunities for Jewish
life infused with joy and
significance.
Without specificity there is
no Judaism. If our messages
of values and ideals and our
national and cultural
identity were or are exactly
the same as those of
the Western World... So, why
continue being Jewish?
Without Israel, Torah,
Community, Jewish
socialization, youth groups
- like our own Maccabi
TzairOlami, our fantastic
Maccabi Youth Movement...
what will keep us alive,
relevant, growing, carrying
a message worthy of being
transmitted and multiplied?
Our greatest modern
thinkers affirmed time and
again that being Jewish is a
way of life (it was so
obvious to thinkers of
earlier times that they had
no need to state it).
Judaism is action, facts in
our lives. This Pesach we
must rethink what and how
many of those facts are
present in our family, our
community and our Maccabi,
facts that keep Judaism and
Zionism active and relevant,
facts that have so much to
tell, and that we not always
deal with properly. If we
believe in continuity, we
must imbue our everyday
action with Jewish-Zionist
content, with more Maccabi,
more Jewish Youth groups,
more trips to Israel, more
camps, more Jewish friends,
more study of our sources
and Hebrew, tefilah and
celebrations in our family.
Our Judaism is a
construction, just as all
other areas of our existence
are works that we must
continue building and
maintaining.
May God grant that
this Seder and its
preparations inspire us to
develop a Jewish-Zionist
action for ourselves and our
beloved, imbued with
challenging and relevant
content to ensure the
continuity of the eternal
messages of our People.
May God grant that
this Pessach Celebration
inspires us to recover the
outstanding significance of
the National Freedom and of
the Redemption it brought to
our People.
And May God bless this
gathering of our cherished
ones around the
Passover Table in
loving embrace and
meaningful dialogue.
Chag Pessach Sameach!
Chazak ve'ematz!
RABBI CARLOS A. TAPIERO
Deputy Director-General &
Director of Education
Maccabi World Union
[3]The actual
back-breaking
slavery started
approximately 86
years before the
Exodus.
[4]Talmudist
and Biblical
commentator of the
seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries
who died in
Constantinople,
Turkey, on August 9,
1732.
[5] Me'am
Lo'ez
Passover Haggadah.
