Families together again this Pesach
As Pesach begins, families gather in Israel and at home, marking the festival with reunion, reflection and hope.
This week, for the first time in three years, seats that were empty at seder tables in Israel will be filled.
Some seats, such as Ran Gvili’s, will remain empty – a sombre reflection of what his absence will always represent for his grieving family. But, Rom Braslavski will be at his family seder. So will all the living hostages that were released from terrorist captivity last October. They are finally free.
Yet Pesach in Israel this year will be marked under Iranian fire. It is a bitter irony that Israelis will celebrate freedom without being free from the Islamic regime’s threats of annihilation.
Meanwhile, for many here at home, there will also be empty seats.
There will be no replacing Rabbis Eli Schlanger or Yaakov Levitan at their family seders. Reuven Morrison’s family will find an empty chair where his larger-than-life personality once emanated. Little Summer Britvan will sing the four questions without her big sister Matilda by her side. Pesach may be a festival about freedom but these and other families will never be free from their grief.
Nor is our community free from antisemitism, as we were reminded yet again when visibly Jewish men were abused in a Jewish area of Melbourne last weekend or a Sydney café was daubed with a swastika.
On a positive note, Hakoah White City will be completed and open by next Pesach, providing a place where the Sydney Jewish community will be able to freely and safely gather.
The latter shows that we do not wait for our destiny; we build it.
As Rabbi Gersh Lazarow writes this week, “Freedom has never meant the absence of fear or uncertainty. It has meant refusing to allow those things to define the future.”
Perhaps that is why we tell the story of the Exodus again and again. To remind us that freedom wasn’t just given to our ancestors. They had to fight for it. And our people have had to fight since, for everything we have.
In that way, the story of Pesach – as with all our stories – gives us the strength and inspiration to never stop fighting, never stop building and never stop dreaming.
We wish you all a happy, safe and kosher Pesach.