Dear Friends,
Shavua tov -what a difference a week makes! Thankfully, Israel and its allies successfully thwarted Iran’s attack last Saturday night and, following Israel’s limited retaliatory response, the threat of direct conflict between Iran and Israel seems to be waning. My dad made it home safely and Abbey’s parents made it here safely, delayed by just a day due to flight cancelations. (If you are interested, you can read more about their adventures in this article from Jewish Insider.)
Abbey and I had an opportunity to pick lemons in the fields of the evacuated Kibbutz Re’im on Monday (against the backdrop of the sounds of artillery fire in Gaza). We also volunteered with a local Chabad to pack boxes of holiday staple items for families in need and returned to Pantry Packer to fill hundreds of bags of coffee for their clients around the country. We have also seen many cousins, baked matzah for our seder, and picked up Oren to spend the holiday with us. We enjoyed a beautiful Shabbat in Jerusalem, highlighted by spending Shabbat morning with the Cowan family, who read Torah and haftara and sponsored the morning kiddush in honor of Bonnie’s 1st Yahrzeit. We anxiously await picking up Elianna in just a few hours.
Thankfully, this Saturday night was a much different experience than last Saturday night, as I will explain. I want to acknowledge that this post is long, but I pray you will find it worthwhile to read.
Because of livestreaming, even when I am away, I still get an opportunity to listen to and learn from the members of our community who give Divrei Torah. In the past few weeks, Elliot Cowan, Janaki Kuruppu and Cliff Fishman have each shared their deep insights into the Torah from a very personal perspective, and I know those who speak in the coming days will do so as well. (To watch archives of previous services, go to my YouTube channel. The sermon usually begins around 1:35 minutes into the video.)
At yesterday’s Shabbat HaGadol morning service, Cliff Fishman posed the possibility of adding a 5th child to the seder – he suggests a number of names for this child, which I believe come down to the child who lovingly asks difficult questions. This child does not ask these difficult questions out of defiance, but out of a genuine desire to develop a deeper understanding. I wholeheartedly agree with the need to embrace such a child.
Just as the 4 questions of the Seder are meant to be “starter questions,” not the totality of questions asked that evening, I believe the 4 children remind us that there are many types of children and learning styles. For our seder table to be complete, we must embrace all of our children, even those with whom we may have strong disagreements. (Please note: While the haggadah includes the “wicked” child, I strongly recommend against hitting a child across the teeth!)
For most of us, I suspect this year’s seder will be more difficult than most:
It is hard to sing and celebrate freedom knowing 133 people are still being held hostage.
It is hard to say “let all who are hungry come eat,” knowing that most people in Gaza have no home to return to and are dependent on foreign aid to avoid starvation.
It is hard to recline in comfort, knowing that IDF soldiers are sitting in trenches and over 100,000 Israelis are displaced from their homes.
And it will be hard because in most of our families, we will find people whose opinion about how Israel has conducted the war differs from our own.
There will be some who may ask wise questions about the context and history of the conflict.
There will be some who will see the conflict in simple terms of good (Israel) v. evil (Hamas or Palestinians).
There will be some who don’t want to talk about it at all, either to avoid conflict or because they don’t feel like they know enough to have an intelligent conversation.
Painfully, there will be some who exclude themselves from the community, arguing that the entire conflict is Israel’s fault because they see it as a racist, colonial state engaging in genocide and who believe October 7 was a justifiable attack to overthrow decades of military occupation or blockades against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
And, as Cliff alluded to, there will be some who love being part of the Jewish people, have a strong connection to Israel, but also have deep and sincere questions about the way in which Israel has conducted the war.
One challenge is not to confuse the 4th child with the 5th one. But how?
Last night, I had the opportunity to attend a Malavah Malka (post-Shabbat celebration) at our cousin Rabbi Mordechai Machlis home. Rabbi Machlis, or Morty, is a Rosh Yeshiva at the Lev HaTorah Yeshiva in Beit Shemesh. Lev HaTorah is part of the network of “Hesder” Yeshivot, which operate in a similar manner to a university co-op, where the students alternate between serving in the IDF and studying Talmud. But Morty is most well-known for the hospitality he and his wife Henny, z’l, have provided since they founded Jerusalem Chesed – Machlis in 1979 to provide a warm Shabbat meal to anyone in need of a place to go. The warmth not only describes the temperature of the food, but even more so, the atmosphere in which people are welcomed into their home. (With 100-200 people at their table each week, warm also describes the room temperature!)
Together, Henny and Morty had 14 children, most of whom are grown and have large families of their own – I’m told there are more than 80 grandchildren. After Henny’s unfortunate death 8 years ago, their children lovingly continued her legacy to provide Shabbat meals every week.
I first met Morty over 30 years ago, when I was a first-year rabbinic student studying at Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion. As a student studying to be a Reform rabbi, I didn’t know what to expect from this leader in the Orthodox community. Not only was I greeted warmly, as a member of the family (even though it was still a few months before Abbey and I were engaged), but he introduced me to all the guests at the dinner as a student studying to be a rabbi at HUC. While I knew that he disagreed with the Reform (and Conservative) approach to Torah, I was treated with respect and love.
Jumping forward to last night, the young children who I met 30 years ago are now grown with children – and in some cases grandchildren – of their own. The warm welcome that I received 30 years ago was extended more than 30-fold, as each of the children (6) and grandchildren (too many to count!) came up to welcome my mother-in-law Judy (Morty’s 1st cousin) and me. The food was plentiful, but the expressions of love far exceeded the food. Morty invited me to share a few words of Torah, and I shared a portion of the reading I prepared for the seder on Sh’foch Chamatcha, in which I compare aspects of Pesach with Yom Kippur, talking about the dual responsibility of our righteous anger at Hamas and those who have supported them AND our need to do our own personal accounting to see the ways that we have contributed to the struggle between Israel and the Palestinian people. Not surprisingly, this led to some spirited conversation.
And then one of Morty’s sons and one son-in-law approached me to explain the difference between Reform and Conservative Judaism. This also led to a spirited (borderline heated) conversation on topics such as Women at the Wall and homosexuality. At the end, we did not come to agreement on these issues – I don’t think any of us thought we would change the other’s mind. But, I believe we all walked away with a little better understanding of the other’s point of view. And, most importantly, the passion that we all brought to our viewpoints was never overshadowed by the passion and love that we have for one another as family and as part of Am Yisrael – the people of Israel. At the end of the night, there were lots of hugs and well-wishes, invitations to get together more frequently, and greetings of Chag Sameach.
For me, this is the message of the 4 (or 5) children and what I hope you can bring to your seder table this year. We each come to the seder table with our own thoughts, beliefs and ideas. Sometimes, we agree with one another, sometimes we have conceptual disagreements, and sometimes we have passionate disagreements. Those passionate disagreements can be difficult and make people uncomfortable, so we often shy away from talking about them or even from having people at our seder with whom we disagree. But the Haggadah teaches us to include even the wicked child with their questions – and hopefully we can learn better ways to answer each of them.
In fact, I would argue that the difference between the 4th child and Cliff’s proposed 5th child may fall not be in the question they ask, but in the way we choose to answer. Even if this child intends to exclude themselves from the Jewish people, if we can still respond with love instead of smacking their teeth, if we still respond with openness and a welcoming spirit, perhaps the child will see that they still have a seat at the table, that their questions are treated seriously and, God willing, realize that they are not excluded after all.
Morty left me with a final teaching which I want to share with you – the Hebrew word for enemy – אויב – and the Hebrew word for love – אוהב – differ by just one letter – a yud and a hey. These two letters form a name by which we call upon God. The message: when we can treat even our enemies with love, we bring God into the world. We pray that the One who makes peace in the heavens will also help us to find ways to bring the hostages home now, to rid the world of the influence of Hamas, and to bring more peace into a world that desperately needs it.
Chag kasher v’sameach from Yerushalayim – may you have a meaningful and happy Passover.
Marc
