By: Ariel Fogelman, Director of Yallah! Israel
For three thousand years the story of Passover has been a story of hope. In the book of Exodus chapter 12, all the details of the holiday are given. The people of Israel are still slaves and cannot celebrate anything in life without permission. The details of the 7-day holiday were given as a utopian vision to the slaves: This is how your children, your grandchildren and your descendants in the 21st century will celebrate if you dare to follow your dreams and take the step in the path of freedom. This future vision gave the slaves the strength to stand up to the Egyptian Empire and take the step that later became a universal symbol for the value of freedom and equality.
Through food, ritual and traditions passed from generation to generation, L’dor V’dor, the Jewish people have been passing forward the ability to dream and never give up. One of the leading Israeli authors, David Grossman, describes in his beautiful words the power of hope:
“Hope is a noun, but it contains a verb that propels it into the future, always to the future, always with forward motion. One could look at hope as a sort of anchor cast from a stifled, desperate existence towards a better, freer future. Towards a reality that does not yet exist, which is made up mostly of wishes, of imagination. When the anchor is cast, it holds on to the future, and human beings, and sometimes entire society, begin to pull themselves towards it.”
These are difficult times for humanity, the Jewish people, and the state of Israel. The need for this anchor of vision of a better freer future is what we need to cast and pull towards in all of our power.
i cant We at the URJ hold the core value of evolving and holding ourselves accountable for changing as we grow. The Seder night is an opportunity for experiential learning of this ancient idea. Celebration of experiential learning is also what we strive for in the URJ camps and in the once in a lifetime experience of Yallah! Israel. We understand that this collective evolving story is made of many individuals that at a young age should be encouraged to ask questions of “Ma-Nishatana?” What has changed? and” Ma-Neshana?” What can we change?
