How is Tonight Different

Newsletter April 22, 2024 Together, we're #keepingitsacred...

Some call the Jewish people the “People of the Book.” But I like to think of us as the “People of the Question.”

Why should we be considered people of the question, you ask? Because not only do we permit questions to be asked, but we encourage, and even mandate it. Tonight, for example, is Passover. And around seder tables, all around the world, when we come to the section called “Mah nishtanah,” we will ask the youngest person present to sing the song famously asking all kinds of questions including the famous one: Ma nishtanah halailah hazeh mikol haleilot?/ Why is tonight different from all other nights? 

This year, many of us would like to take the question further. Why is this year different from all other years? 

It feels like this year the questions raise even more questions.  

In all other years, the massacres we had been told about in our people’s past felt like distant history, but this year we saw it in vivid color on the 5 o’clock news.

In all other years, we have felt revealing our Jewish identity could be done in relative safety in the US, but this year, our community has experienced an onslaught of instances of racial epithets, swastikas, and attacks.

In all other years, we have appreciated the value of self-defense but this year the mass killing of thousands of innocent people caught in the crossfire has left us questioning if self-defense itself is a moral or ethical choice or if there are boundaries to it.

In all other years, we have felt like the issues between the Israelis and the Palestinians have been of two peoples vying for the same piece of land, but this year we have seen how incredibly powerful geopolitical forces have complicated the issues exponentially.

We have so many questions. Many of us have been asking some form of these questions for years, but even for us who have dared to ask these questions in the past, this year it feels different. It is actually overwhelming to contemplate. 

So tonight we make space to ask questions. And the questions we ask are a beginning. And we ask them in community- huddled around the dinner tables with our loved ones contemplating the timeless themes of fear, hatred, and oppression, mass migration and the murder of innocents, power and privilege, and the mandate to stand up for what is right. The themes of the Exodus story; the themes of today.

May we contemplate with open hearts and always keep asking questions that lead us to the answers of finding a peaceful and just future forward. As we say at the end of the Seder, next year in Jerusalem! Next year in yiru-shalom- next year in a place of peace. 

This is how we’re keeping it sacred. 

Together, we’re #keepingitsacred...

Rabbi Heather Miller

Founder, Keeping It Sacred

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