In Every Generation: The Passover Protests of 2024

In Every Generation: The Passover Protests of 2024

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

April 26, 2024

In the late 1960’s and early ‘70’s I participated in anti-Vietnam-war protests. Granted, UCLA and SMU weren’t exactly the political hotbeds that Stanford and Berkeley were. But still, it was a heady feeling to be part of this movement. At UCLA I remember forming a “penny lane” along one of the main walks that led to the Student Center, holding placards and staffing tables with information that we took at face value—the number of American soldiers killed, the number of Vietnamese civilians killed, and the amount of money that went into what we saw as an unjust and brutal war.

Nationwide however, as the protests evolved, they became more violent. As I recall it, the terrible climax came with the killing of four students at Kent State University. After that, the song “Ohio” by, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young became the theme song that united us. I was a student at SMU at the time, and as I left of one of my classes, I walked right into the middle of a protest on the quad in front of the iconic rotunda. It was a symbolic funeral for the four students, and I somehow found myself one of the pallbearers, helping to hold up an improvised black-painted, cardboard casket.  It was a powerful moment that left me feeling dazed, sensing unification with everything and everyone around me, all of us part of a huge movement to make the world better, to accept and love one another despite our color or race, the shape of our eyes, or the faith we professed.

The protests of the 60’s and 70’s weren’t only against the war, however, and they didn’t only happen on college campuses. After the Stonewall Inn riots in June 1969, gay men and women mobilized to lay the foundation for what is today the LGBTQIA+ Community. Native-Americans rallied to reclaim their stolen identity. The Women’s Lib Movement—mocked probably more than any other group at the time and still so to this day—took its first steps towards gender equality (it was only in 1974 that women were first granted the right to open credit cards in their own name, not in their husband’s name).

There was no Jewish-lib movement that I was aware of. There didn’t seem to be a need for one. Jews—myself included—were involved in everything that took place. A full half of the Freedom Riders—Americans who took part in the Mississippi Freedom Summer of 1964, who marched alongside Rev. Martin Luther King, and who traveled to Southern states, to help Black men and women claim their voting rights—were Jewish. Jews were active in every liberation movement, visionaries and trailblazers who often rose to leadership positions—like Harvey Milk in San Francisco and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel in Selma.  

How different is all that from what I see today: the anti-Israel “tent encampments” at Harvard, Columbia, USC, the University of Texas at Austin, George Washington University and elsewhere. 

And what’s different about this so-called protest movement, what’s so frightening and maddening, is that it isn’t inclusive, as ours was. It doesn’t aim to unite, but to divide. It isn’t driven by love, but by intolerance and hate. Today’s protests don’t embrace—they reject. What’s so shocking today—and maybe shouldn’t be—is that these protests are directed against one group, one which until now saw itself as an equal and integral part of the larger whole: Jews. In fact, the “tent encampments” are singularly and specifically aimed against Jews, meant to violently exclude Jews from any part of our society and culture. Of all Americans, the one group that’s been most active in liberation and inclusion movements; who more than most others have stepped up to free the oppressed, paying with their blood, time and money; the group that has contributed immeasurably to the advancement of art and music, science, education, health and lifestyle in America, particularly considering our number (less than 3% of the general population): the Jews. 

When the protesters today call for globalized intifada—what they actually mean is the murder of Jews all over the world. 

The naïveté and ignorance of these protesters is astounding. They don’t even mention—or when they do, then it’s with excuses and even support—the worst atrocity committed against Jews since the Holocaust, when Hamas terrorists broke the ceasefire on the morning of October 7 and butchered over 1000 civilians—men, women and infants—and took more than 200 others hostage. Instead, what they rail against is Israel’s reaction and its rightful determination to defend itself. 

Unlike past protests, today it isn’t Israel’s “disproportionate” reaction that’s being denounced. The chants, the signs, the violence, the forced segregation of Jews from public, open spaces, are all aimed against Israel’s right to exist in the first place. The “tent encampments,” the slogans and speeches, aren’t for anyone. Rather, they only advocate exclusion, hatred and violence. What they protest is the Jewish People’s legitimate right to define and defend itself, to live in peace and safety just like any other nation and country in the world. 

The campus protests broke out like a plague in the middle of Pesach 2024. But they were anything but spontaneous. They were actually preceded by decades of multi-million-dollar donations to universities, made by oil-rich, antisemitic countries. It was money that went to hire—and grant tenure to—those professors who towed the line, who mocked or punished Jewish students, who taught only the Arab-endorsed, revisionist and antisemitic narrative, without any reference to what really happened. 

For decades now, pro-Arabist activists infiltrated academia and liberal causes. It’s easy, they found, to brainwash students, naïve, ignorant, with hearts of gold. It’s easy, they discovered, to activate long-dormant prejudices and use them for their own vile purposes. 

If, as Shakespeare wrote, “all the world is a stage,” then from now on we need to be extra watchful about who the playwright is, who the director, and who finances the production. 

Year after year we read in the Passover Haggadah, “In every generation [they] rise up to destroy us.” For most of us, it’s been little more than a line from an ancient play, written at a different time, for a different generation. This Passover, however, this reminder is poignant, epic and current.

We Jews are awfully good at forgiving. But we never forget. Passover 2024 will remain in our collective memories forever. It will be years before we are able to look at former friends and colleagues without suspicion. We will remain wary of groups we once were proud to be part of. Trust is hard to rebuild.

For our sake as a people and as a nation, we pray: May healing come soon. May we learn to embrace one another as we once did and look forward with love, not hate. May we once again see not what divides us, but rather look for what we have in common. 

May God give us strength, may God bless us with peace.

© 2024 by Boaz D. Heilman

Passover 2024: Night of Broken Matzahs

Night of Broken Matzahs: Passover 2024

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

Approximately 3,250 years ago a new people was born. They emerged from physical and spiritual bondage and set out toward a future they knew nothing about. They called themselves Israel, after one of their ancestors, holding deep in their hearts faith in a power stronger than any human being, king or emperor, and the belief that this power would lead them to a better place, a promised land.

It would prove a long and difficult journey. With little more to unite them other than their identity, they agreed to follow an aged leader who would often disappear for days at a time, yet who constantly pointed up and forward, towards God and the rising sun. 

Ever since then, we’ve celebrated Passover to remind us of that moment in our history and of the journey we undertook and are still on. But unlike our ancient ancestors, today we have a roadmap. Today we know where that promised land lies, and we know how to get there. And, once a year—twice for those of us who follow the tradition of repeating the Seder on the second night of the holiday—we review the map. We call it the Haggadah.

The Haggadah was created by the early Rabbis who had seen the destruction of the Second Temple and the subsequent dispersal of the Jewish People to all corners of the earth. Containing 15 steps, the Haggadah—our narration—begins with the earliest days of our past, long before we became slaves, when our third Patriarch, Jacob, who later became Israel, was fleeing from Laban. (How often in our history it seems that we have been fleeing from oppressors!). We read passages from the Torah that relate the miracle of our escape from Pharaoh—the hard labor, the drowning of male newborns, the ten plagues, the parting of the Red Sea. And we discuss, along with the Rabbis of old, the timing and manner in which our Redemption took place—in the midst of the terrible darkness that seemed to swallow the entire world.

And then, of course, we eat. We eat symbolic foods—items that remind us of the tears of bitterness, of the mortar we used in building those vast storehouses for Pharaoh, and of course matzah, the bread of poverty, that recalls the hurry with which we left Egypt. 

Over time, our foods became part of this roadmap. Every region of the world where our path took us is represented in the menu. There’s the Iraqi version of charoset, made with date honey and walnuts; and Ashkenazi charoset—apples, walnuts, cinnamon and sweet wine. There’s Persian charoset, and Indian; Moroccan, Italian and Mexican. Matzah balls and gefilte fish represent eastern Europe—the recipe changing just slightly from one region to another. Today of course, we have fusion cuisine, but there are also families that hold on with almost fanatic tenacity to the traditions they have always followed, from generation to generation.

The Passover Haggadah comes in more editions and translations than any other book in the world, yet all follow the same order, the same 15 steps. Seder, after all, means order, and by following it we express our deep-seated belief that in our sometimes-chaotic world, order still exists. There is a beginning and a goal, and a road that leads us there. In some households, the Seder can last for hours, though most rabbis recommend that it not go past midnight. Children are encouraged to stay awake for the entire thing. There are songs, games and puzzles that help.

Why the children? Partially to observe the commandment, “And when your children ask you, ‘what do you mean by this service?’ you shall say, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to Adonai, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when smiting the Egyptians, but saved our houses” (Ex. 12:26-27).

But why only the children? Isn’t the Seder there to remind all of us of that miracle of our existence and survival?

One answer of course is that they may yet not know or understand our history and its implications for their lives. But there is another answer too. Our journey does not stop with the past; it runs through our own lives and then, into the unforeseeable future. 

So what exactly do we teach our children? Certainly not just another miracle story, just another example of “they tried to kill us, they failed, let’s eat!”

If there is a common theme that runs through all our Passover traditions, it is hope. Our history is often bright and fun, filled with delicious foods and meaningful customs. But it is also marked by dark nights, by times when we had every reason to give up—but didn’t.

One of the songs we sing during the Seder is Dayeinu, “It would have been enough.” Though today at most tables, only four or five of its stanzas are sung, the song actually consists of 15 sections, just like our Haggadah. This piyyut, or religious poem, goes back some two thousand years, listing a series of blessings that begin with our Redemption from Egypt and end with the building of the Temple in Jerusalem. Each stanza, each blessing, reminds us of a need we experienced, and the gift we received from God. Each step leads us forward, to a higher spiritual level than ever before. What Dayeinu is really about, is never losing hope, even—and especially—when all hope seems lost. 

A story is told  about an incident that took place in a concentration camp during the Shoah—the Holocaust—the darkest time in recent Jewish history. A rabbi bribed a guard into allowing a certain amount of flour to be smuggled in. “We’re not asking for extra food,” he explained. “We just want to be able to fulfill our Passover duties.” Amazingly, the guard permitted it, and a small amount of flour was procured and handed over to the rabbi. Not to lose a moment, the internees hurried to build a makeshift oven—for no one knew when their endeavor might be discovered and foiled! They followed the traditions: the whole process of mixing the flour with water and then baking it into matzahs had to take no more than 18 minutes. The result however was disappointing—just a few meager matzahs for the hundreds of hungry, despairing Jews. For some time they discussed who should get the matzahs, but finally it was decided: the children. So that they should know not only the taste of the bread of poverty and misery, but also of hope and redemption.

So too today, when we break the middle matzah during the Seder, we hide the larger part of it—the afikomen—and let the children find it towards the end of the evening. There is a lesson in this that they will need to understand and then teach to their children in their own time. Hope is never lost, as long as we keep our memories of the past alive, as long as we hold on to our faith, and, like Moses and our ancestors of long ago, look up to heaven and forward towards the rising sun.

This year, even as we remember those whose lives were so horribly taken from them on October 7; even as we think of the war still going on between Israel and its enemies, and the terrible toll it continues to exact; even as we pray for the safety and health—and, God willing, the safe return to their families—of the men, women and children who are still held hostage by terrorists in Gaza; we must keep in mind that brighter days are yet ahead, days when we will yet dance again, praise God again, and sing Dayeinu in joyous harmony. Like our ancient ancestors, we hold on to our faith and hope. Like them we know that the most important thing is not to be afraid, not to despair, but to stay on the path, step by step, until we get there.

© 2024 by Boaz D. Heilman

Unholy Fires: Shemini.24

Unholy Fires: Shemini

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

April 5, 2024

In this week’s Torah portion, Shemini (“On the Eighth Day,” Leviticus 9:1—11:47) a disastrous event is described: the sudden death of two of Aaron’s sons, Nadav and Avihu.

The cause of their death is as mysterious as what led up to it.  The Torah sums it up in two verses: the two brothers offered “strange fire before the Lord, which He commanded them not. And fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord” (Lev. 10:1-2, NIV).  

There are many rabbinic commentaries on this disturbing yet puzzling event. Some Rabbis say that it was simply overzealousness that drove Nadav and Avihu to disobey. They were over-eager and took a few shortcuts around some rules. Other rabbis focus instead on the “strange” fire that the brothers brought, and propose various theories as to what that might have been. 

In any case, the Torah offers this story as an example of the wrong ways to offer sacrifices, when there is, of course, only one right way, exemplified by another set of two brothers: Moses and Aaron. In the world of the Torah, there is no room for moral relativism. Right is always right, and wrong is always wrong. 

Of course, we know that in reality life isn’t always black and white. Sometimes we need to bend the rules a bit and deviate from norms that, under other circumstances, we would never even question. Towards the end of World War Two, some Jewish survivors of the Shoah formed a group called in Hebrew Ha-Nokmim, “the avengers,” with the purpose of exacting vengeance on Nazis and their partners. At the time, their deeds may have seemed justified in light of their suffering, as well as the immense suffering of the Jewish People as a whole. Yet toward the end of their lives, most expressed remorse for their actions. Taking a life invariably diminishes our own humanity. We can never again regain the innocence that had characterized our lives previously. Wrong is wrong, no matter the circumstances. The consequences can be sudden, as was the fire that burst out and consumed Nadav and Avihu, or appear much later, when we have had time to reflect on our lives.

That’s why the passage from our Torah portion is so purposefully vague: not only to make us stop and ponder about what might have happened 3000 or more years ago, but also to make us think about the many choices that we have to make every day, lest we, like Nadav and Avihu, bring “strange” fire to our efforts, no matter how well-intentioned these might be.

Among the meanings the early rabbis assign to this story, there are at least four theories about what might have happened. Rabbi Akiva taught that the fire was brought in from the kitchen, not the sanctioned source that had to be used for rituals and sacrifices. Another rabbi suggests that the brothers were drunk. Yet a third—that they sought to unseat and replace Moses and Aaron themselves. And a fourth, that they did not consult one another; each tried to outdo the other, each tried to prove himself superior to the other. 

Unlike Moses and Aaron, whose relationship the Torah presents as the example of doing things right, it was Nadav and Avihu’s pride and arrogance that led to their downfall.

Now, fomenting rebellion against recognized and approved authority is always inherently dangerous. If that was Nadav and Avihu’s purpose, they definitely had their punishment coming to them. But bringing fire from the kitchen? Why would Rabbi Akiva see that as wrong? Is it because the kitchen is where life is taken and blood is spilled? Yet, in this respect the kitchen is not unlike the sacred altar, where countless animals were slaughtered on a daily basis. And isn’t the hearth also often the heart within our homes, the place where families and friends gather to celebrate and share life and love? What makes the kitchen profane and the altar holy?

Perhaps it’s that the rules for sacrificing at the altar were strictly prescribed and observed by the priests, while the kitchen is more commonly a place where improvisation takes over, where temptations can lead us astray—taste this, lick that, try a new recipe, or a different spice. Or as my cardiologist said to me just the other day after reviewing my lab numbers, “If it tastes good, it’s bad for you.” In the kitchen you aim for what tastes and looks good, not what is inherently good for you. In the kitchen, it’s easy to forget what’s kosher and what isn’t.

Despite the Torah’s injunction against entering the Tent of Meeting drunk, the idea that Aaron’s two sons were inebriated is also a matter of debate among rabbis. Some actually see spiritual elevation as a positive result of this state. Yet there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that alcohol hampers us physically and mentally. A person can see themselves as completely bright and competent, yet the confusion that accompanies intoxication can lead them to a totally wrong conclusion and outcome. This might have been the case on the night of October 6, just prior to the most traumatic event to befall the Jewish People since the Holocaust. There is no doubt about the absolute evil that was perpetrated by the Hamas terrorists. Yet prior intelligence reports did indicate that the terror organization was planning something big. But what followed was miscalculation and wrong analysis of the signs. Maybe it was sheer carelessness, or that dizzying feeling of carefree lightness, a form of intoxication. In any event, the intelligence reports were ignored, and the disastrous results were quick to follow.

The Torah admonishes us against the dangers posed by arrogance, confusion and miscalculation. 

Torah doesn’t just tell tales. It teaches. The story of Nadav and Avihu teaches us that there is no such thing as moral relativism. A deep and wide gulf lies between right and wrong, sacred and profane, holy and evil.

Ultimately, “strange fire” may be our first impulse to cut corners as we strive for greatness and success. But in the end, without a doubt, it will consume us. It’s an unholy composite of arrogance and selfishness, ignorance and bigotry. These are the danger signs we have to watch out for within ourselves and in society around us. 

What we should aim for instead is to follow the teachings of the prophet Micah, who wrote that all that God wants of us, all that holiness really is, is “To act justly and love mercy and walk humbly with our God” (Micah 6:8). That is the difference between the “strange” fire which Nadav and Avihu brought to the sacrifice, and the sacred fire which we try to bring into our lives and to the life of the world around us, the light of holiness and God.

We must not—and may we never—forget this difference.

© 2024 by Boaz D. Heilman