A MOST DIFFICULT DECISION

The British were to leave the territory of Palestine on May 15 at midnight. The Jewish leaders planned to announce the Declaration of Independence as soon as the English left.

The Arabs also had their plans: when the British were gone, they would invade and attack Israel. They had a powerful army from five nations: Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq. And Jordan, which joined at the last moment. They had modern, powerful weapons and enough ammunition acquired from European countries.

On May 12, the Jewish leaders met in Tel Aviv to assess the situation.

Moshe Sharet reported that the United States demanded that Israel NOT declare its independence. And they warned that if Israel would, the United States would NOT help with soldiers or weapons.

Golda Meir also brought bad news: the king of Jordan, who had previously agreed to the creation of a Jewish State, changed his mind: he gave in to the pressure of other Arab countries, and now his army would join the invasion of Israel.

GERMANS vs. ARABS

The Jewish military leaders were very pessimistic: possibly the 600,000 Jews living now in Palestine will not survive the Arab invasion, they thought. The memories of the Holocaust were still very fresh.

A thought that did not leave the minds and hearts of the Jewish leaders was this: If Germans, a civilization that was the cradle of modern European culture, systematically exterminated all Jewish men, women, elderly, and children that they could, what would the Arabs do with us if we lose this war?

After 13 hours of deliberations, in the darkest hour, where life, death, and the possibility of a second Holocaust were at stake, David Ben Gurion, miraculously managed to convince the majority of those present to declare the establishment of the State of Israel.

OUR BIGGEST ALLY

The chances of surviving were small… but HaShem was with us!

We survived. And against all odds, we WON the war, which took a year of battles and cost the lives of 1% of Israel’s population.

As David Ben Gurion himself famously said,

“When it comes to Israel, he who does not believe in miracles is not a realist.”

UNITY BRINGS MIRACLES

We Jews never stood out for thinking all in the same way. We love to discuss, dissent, and to debate. It is not uncommon for us to disagree on almost everything. This stimulates us intellectually, but sometimes it also divides us. And unfortunately, we usually focus more on what differentiates us than unites us …
Perhaps, one of the reasons for God’s miraculous intervention in winning the War of Independence, the most difficult of all Israel’s war, was that we Jews were united in proclaiming the Independence of the State of Israel.

A RARE EVENT

The Declaration of Independence of Israel was signed by representatives of the entire political and religious spectrum of that time. I believe the “Declaration of Independence” was also a “Declaration of the UNITY of the Jewish people”.
Among the signatories were, for example, representatives of the socialist party leftist; secular Jews; Jews from the center; Jews to the right, and religious Jews. It is worth remembering the presence and signatures of important rabbinical personalities. Israel’s Declaration of Independence was signed by five rabbis: Rabbi Moshe Maimon, Rabbi Saadia Kubashi, and Rabbi Zeev Gold; these three rabbis belonged to the religious Zionist Organization Mizrahi. And the Declaration was also signed by Rabbi Kalman Kahana and Rabbi Yitzhak Meir Levin, both rabbis of the religious movement “Agudat Israel”.

שהחיינו

On Friday, May 14, 5t of Iyar, Rabbi Moshe Maimon, who can be seen in this film on the right side of Ben Gurion, recited with great emotion, on behalf of all Am Israel, the blessing SHEHECHEYANU VEQIYEMANU VEHIGIYANU LAZEMAN HAZEH!
“Blessed are you, HaShem … that You have granted our existence, and You have allowed us to be alive in this special moment”.

Next to where the children are playing, there is a Pasuq, a biblical verse carved in a stone, just below the playground. It’s a quote from the prophet Zechariah. Zekharia was a child when the Jews were in Babylonian exile 2500 years ago—without their own land and without the Bet HaMiqdash the future of the Jewish people looked very grim. Many were hopeless. Because in normal circumstances, after “exile,” people integrate into the local nation. And many Jews were actually assimilated into the Babylonian population. There was no precedent of a people returning to their nation after two or three generations in exile. It looked like the end of the Jewish nation was inevitable.
But a great miracle happened. Cyrus, the Persian emperor, was moved by HaShem (that is what he explicitly declared!), and he encouraged the Jews to come back to Israel, resettle there, and rebuild Jerusalem and its Temple. Although the majority of the Jews chose to remain in Babel (the first, but not last, “voluntary exile”), thousands came back. Zekharia was among them. When they arrived, around the year 530BCE, they found a completely destroyed city. Everything was in ruins—the city in ashes and desolated. There were no protective walls to guard the people against thieves and potential enemies, which made living in Jerusalem a mission impossible. It will take a few decades a very courageous Jew, Nechemia, to rebuild the walls and make Jerusalem habitable and safe again.
But while Jerusalem was still in ruins, Zekharia had a prophetic vision, a very unlikely prediction given the terrible conditions of Yerushalayim in those days.

כֹּה אָמַר ה’ צְבָאוֹת: עֹד יֵשְׁבוּ זְקֵנִים וּזְקֵנוֹת בִּרְחֹבוֹת יְרוּשָׁלִָם, וְאִישׁ מִשְׁעַנְתּוֹ בְּיָדוֹ מֵרֹב יָמִים. וּרְחֹבוֹת הָעִיר יִמָּלְאוּ יְלָדִים וִילָדוֹת מְשַׂחֲקִים בִּרְחֹבֹתֶיהָ (זכריה ח’ 5-4)

HaShem revealed to Zekharia that in the future, His presence will return to Zion and will dwell in Yerushalayim, and when that happens: “and once again men and women of ripe old age will sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each of them with a cane in hand because of their age. And the city squares will be filled with boys and girls playing there.”
Now, let us see the whole picture: You are in the Old City of Jerusalem, very close to where the prophet Zekharia stood when he announced this prophecy, and you are reading this extraordinary verse engraved on the stone in front of you. Then you lift your eyes at any given day, and you see the elders sitting on a bench, and the children playing in the street of the Old City. And you realize that you are a living witness of the fulfillment of Zekhariah’s prophetic words… Or perhaps you realize that you are not just a witness of Zekhariah’s prophecy: rather, you are the fulfillment of that Prophecy. You get the feeling that 2500 ago, in his incredible vision, Zekhariah saw “you”.

YOM HAATZMAUT SAMEACH

ON VICTORY AND DEFEAT
On the day that the Jewish leaders declared the establishment of the new State of Israel, on May 14, 1948 (5 Iyar 5718), the neighboring Arab countries declared war on the Jewish State and began an invasion on all fronts, confident of their victory. Israel had many disadvantages, but the most notable was the lack of weapons. Let us remember that the five Arab countries that launched an attack against Israel – Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan – had become independent a few years earlier. Both England and France equipped them with weapons and trained their armies. The Arab countries had, for example, 50 tanks, while Israel only had one tank. The Arabs had 200 artillery vehicles, and Israel had just two. The Arabs had 140 guns, and Israel only had five. The most significant disadvantage was that the Arabs had more than 70 warplanes. At the start of hostilities, Israel had none. The Arab countries had warned that if Israel declared its independence, they would attack. They were waiting for this to happen since the chances of winning the war and having everything in their favor were 100%. So confident were in their triumph that they called on the Arab radio for all Palestinians living in Israel to leave for a while the country, assuring them that they would return very soon when the short battle would be over, and all the Jews would be thrown into the sea (a euphemism for: “being brutally murdered”). Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians left the territory of Israel. In this way, the Arab countries created the “Palestinian refugee problem,” for which they never took charge, and instead, to this day, they continue to blame Israel.

OBJECTIVE: TEL-AVIV
Immediately after the declaration of independence, Egyptian warplanes appeared in the skies over Tel Aviv, began to bombard the city, and met no resistance. These nonstop attacks from the air left hundreds dead — including women and children — and thousands wounded. The Egyptians advanced significantly and reached Ashdod, remaining only 30 kilometers from Tel Aviv. The powerful Jordanian legion, trained by the British and commanded by British generals (sic.), managed to besiege Jerusalem, and the invasion of the Holy City was imminent. The Jordanians also captured the city of Lod and what is now Ben Gurion International Airport and approached Tel Aviv from the east. Iraqi forces that came from the northeast were also closing in on Petah Tikva and Hadera on their way to Tel Aviv. The Syrians were surrounding the city of Tiberia and, together with the Lebanese military forces, had isolated the Galil, the north of the country, from the rest of Israel. The final destination of the Arab armies was Tel-Aviv, which at that time was the seat of Israel’s Government and the military High Command.

UNITED AGAINST ISRAEL
Israel had no way to defend herself and could not get weapons. Why? Because the United States was leading an international embargo that prohibited any country from selling weapons to Israel, with full awareness and knowledge that Israel could not possibly survive the attack of the Arab armies on her own. It was only a matter of time before a new Shoah was repeated, and the world, for the second time, acted as a silent accomplice. All efforts by Israel’s newly created Israeli Army to defend itself failed. The forecasts that predicted the brutal defeat of Israel were coming true. The military superiority of the Arab armies was insurmountable. There was no way the Israelis could withstand the attacks even for a few more days…. the end was imminent. The Arabs, very confident in their victory, announced that “what Hitler had done was nothing in the second war, compared to what they would do with the Jews” once they conquered Tel Aviv. The world, as in a horrible dejavú of the Holocaust, watched and remained silent.
And then a great miracle happened.
It was June 11, Sivan 4, 1948.

THE CEASEFIRE
The Swedish Count Folke Bernadotte, appointed by the United Nations as a mediator between Israelis and Arabs, proposed a ceasefire, that is, an interruption of the military activity of the armies for four weeks, offering that each one remains in control of the positions they had conquered up to that moment. Israel, which was losing on all fronts, obviously agreed. The inexplicable thing—the miraculous thing!—was that the Arab countries also accepted this ceasefire, even though they were one day away from conquering Tel Aviv! I quote Professor Ben Artzi, a historian at Bar Ilan University. He writes this in his (Hebrew) book Megillat Hatequma VehaAtzmaut: “But why did the Arabs accept the ceasefire…? In reality, all their military objectives had already been achieved: Jerusalem was surrounded and besieged; Tel Aviv, a very short distance [from falling into their power]; the south of Israel [the Negeb] disconnected from the rest of the country, and the Galil, the north, had already been conquered. A little more effort on the part of the Arabs, and they were already in the heart of Jerusalem, Petah Tikva, Netania, Hadera, Afula, and Tel-Aviv”.
Ben Artzi does not try to hide his conviction that this ceasefire was a miracle of Biblical proportions.

CELEBRATING AHEAD OF TIME
The truce began on June 11. The five Arab armies, who considered that they had already won the war, started negotiations among themselves about how Israel’s territory and the spoils of war were going to be divided once the Jews had formally surrendered, something they hoped to happen in the next few days. But Israel took advantage of the ceasefire and, with the support and generous donations of Jews in the United States and the diaspora, bought from Czechoslovakia, the only country that dared to break the international embargo, all the weapons they could, including 15 military planes. It also changed its strategy: even though the military balance was still in favor of the Arabs—at least 10 to 1— Israel decided that now it was not only going to defend itself but would start attacking the Arabs! Once the war resumed, the Arab armies were so confident in their victory that they practically stopped fighting. According to Igal Alon, the famous Palmach commander, when the ceasefire expired: “The Arab armies that had a great advantage stopped advancing, something that is inexplicable.”

BIBLICAL FEAR
And then the third miracle happened. Israel’s courageous and unexpected decision to go on the offensive caught the Arabs entirely by surprise. They went from passivity to panic, imagining that Israel had more power than it did. At the end of May, four unassembled  “Messerschmidt” military planes secretly arrived in Israel from Czechoslovakia inside a commercial aircraft. The planes were assembled in record time, and on May 30, before they could test them, they went out on their first mission: trying to stop the Egyptian forces who were only 30 kilometers from Tel Aviv. The planes made a surprise attack on the Egyptians. Still, they did not cause severe damage since the attacking equipment did not work well. However, the Egyptian commander in charge of that force sent an urgent message to his superiors, telling them that “his army could advance no further because they were being bombarded by a force far superior to them.” All this panic was more imaginary than real.
The Tora first mentions the “fear” that Israel’s enemies felt in the Yaaqob Abinu story. When the inhabitants of Canaan, obviously stronger and more numerous than Jacob and his sons, “wanted but did not dare” to attack Jacob. The Torah says (Genesis 35:5) that the inhabitants of those cities “were taken by a Divine fear, which dissuaded them from persecuting the children of Israel.
ויהי חתת אלקים על־הערים אשר סביבתיהם.”
This is the way HaShem intervened to save our ancestors from their numerous enemies. The Tora tells the same thing in the famous song that the children of Israel recited when crossing the sea. תפל עליהם אימתה ופחד בגדל זרועך ידמו כאבן עה. In the book of Shemot, it appears to be an explicit promise from God to Israel. Our Torah says (Exodus 23: 27) that when Israel prepares to conquer the peoples of Canaan, God will intervene. How? “And I will strike fear and terror into your enemies, and confuse them…and cause all your enemies to turn their backs on you and flee.”
We see this “Divine Modus Operandi” dozens of times in the Tanakh: Hashem defends His people, infusing an irrational psychological fear in the hearts of Israel’s enemies.

BIBLICAL AUDACITY
Israel took an Egyptian officer who had participated in the War of Independence prisoner in the 1956 war. He was asked why the Egyptians accepted the ceasefire and did not continue to advance toward Tel Aviv in 1948 when the road was completely open to them. The officer said: “When we attacked the Israelis, we saw something that scared us: even after taking direct fire and heavy casualties, the Israeli soldiers kept advancing as if they were “crazy” (mej’nunin). And then we said to ourselves: “These crazy people cannot be beaten. It is better to [accept the ceasefire] and settle for what we have already achieved.HaShem did not just infuse fear in the enemy; He also inspired extraordinary courage in the hearts of His people.

MY INTERPRETATION
I want to end this incomplete history of the most crucial war in the history of the State of Israel with a final reflection. The most inconceivable fact of this story is that knowing about their incomparable military inferiority, the leaders of Israel have decided to declare the Independence of Medinat Israel, knowing that the Arab’s attack would be imminent. This decision did not make any sense, neither from a military point of view nor from a logical point of view. Looking at the numbers, one can only think that it was an act of madness.
However, there is another possibility. David Ben Gurion and the Israeli leaders of that time were not just acting on their own. A kind of Divine audacity moved them: God intervened in their minds and hearts in a way opposite to the way He intervenes when He spreads irrational fear into the hearts of our enemies. The Almighty inspired their souls with incredible irrational courage and bravery, which led them to act like Nachshon Ben Aminadab, going into the water until literally it covered their nose, knowing that HaShem would eventually intervene by opening the sea.
This was the first miracle of Yom HaAtzmaut. Perhaps the greatest of them all

In the Sephardic tradition, the 33rd day of the Omer, or Lag LaOmer (sic), is known as the day of the Hillula of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai.

Who was Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai?

Rabbi Shimon lived during the second century of the Common Era. The collections of Midrashei Halacha, Sifre, and Mekhilta are primarily attributed to his authorship. He is the fourth most frequently mentioned Rabbi in the entire Mishna and was one of the five disciples who carried on the legacy of Rabbi Akiva.

However, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai is best known as the author of the Sefer HaZohar (the Book of Splendor), which contains the Sitre Tora—the mystical and secret aspects of the Tora.

The Talmud in Shabbat 33 recounts the extraordinary story that led Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai to attain such profound levels of knowledge. Rabbi Shimon was sentenced to death by the Romans for daring to criticize their government. He fled to a cave with his son, Rabbi Elazar. They remained there for twelve years, surviving on a carob tree and a spring of water. During these years of isolation—studying Tora, detached from all social distractions, and with their material needs minimally met—Rabbi Shimon and his son reached an unprecedented level of Tora understanding.

And because Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai reached an unparalleled spiritual level, his death is seen as a “graduation”—having achieved the highest possible level of accomplishment in this life. The 33rd day of the Omer commemorates this “graduation.”

The sages of Qabbala referred to this celebration as a Hillula, which means “wedding”—a metaphor used to describe the highest level of spirituality. The Qabbalists explain that in this world, the highest possible level of closeness to God is that of irusin, or engagement—when a couple decides to marry and commits to one another. In the state of irusin, a man and woman who love each other declare their mutual affection and their desire to spend their lives together. This is the closest level of connection with God one can achieve in this world: a level of loyalty, devotion, and unconditional love for Hashem.

The next level—marriage—is a far more intimate relationship. But it lies beyond earthly and human reach. That is why this metaphor, marriage, was chosen to describe the level that Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai could only reach after departing from this world: a non-corporeal dimension, free from material needs and physical limitations. A state in which the soul can stand before the Divine Presence and fully enjoy His splendor.

As the reader can see, these mystical concepts are very profound, and even mentioning them is a subject of debate within the Jewish people.

Let me explain further.

There are two primary views regarding the dissemination of Qabbala. The first view, mainly found in Hasidic circles, holds that Qabbala should be taught to anyone willing to listen, regardless of their level of knowledge or religious observance. They also believe that spreading this mystical knowledge will hasten the coming of the Mashiach, since they interpret the prophetic verse that in the Messianic era “the knowledge of Hashem will fill the world as the waters cover the sea” as referring to mystical knowledge.

The other opinion, typical of the Sephardic rabbis, holds that Qabbala is extremely difficult to understand and very easy to misunderstand—or even be misused by charlatans and impostors. We have had more than one false messiah, such as Shabetay Tsevi, who used their knowledge of Qabbala to gain credibility and attract ignorant and superstitious followers.

Today, there are groups that supposedly study a form of popular “Qabbala”—an enormous oxymoron. In these circles, Qabbala is not seen or studied as a path to draw closer to God by renouncing material aspirations, but rather as a form of esoteric knowledge mixed with astrology, self-help, numerology, and even Zen philosophy to achieve greater material wealth or success—which is exactly the opposite of what real Qabbala is all about.

In the Sephardic tradition, the study and transmission of Qabbala is reserved for individuals who meet the following criteria:

• A high level of Tora knowledge. To begin with, one must have already studied the entire Talmud, with commentaries, and be an expert in Halacha.

• Exceptional religious and moral conduct, characterized by absolute integrity and humility.

• Perhaps the most essential condition: disdain for materialism.

Only such an individual may be taught Qabbala in a private setting.

According to this philosophy, as I learned from my teacher Rabbi Saadia Ben Zaquen z”l, there is an infallible golden rule to identify a true Qabbalist:

“Those who know it do not speak of it, and those who speak of it do not know it.”

WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM OUR ENEMIES?

I would like to briefly refer to the Holocaust in Sephardic communities, a topic that is not often discussed. In Holland, France, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and Italy, the Sephardic Jews suffered the same fate as the Ashkenazi Jews of Europe. Probably the most shocking case was that of the community of Thessaloniki in Greece, where nearly 54,000 Jews, 95% of its population, were exterminated in Auschwitz (see here). My first reflection is that we must learn a great lesson from our enemies: that we are ONE people and we must stay united. That there are no, and should not be, differences between Sephardim, Ashkenazim, more religious or less religious, etc. We must do the impossible to feel that we are members of the same family.

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THE JEWS OF MOROCCO AND ALGERIA

Let’s briefly look at the impact of the Shoah on the Jewish communities in North Africa: Morocco, which had a population of 200,000 Jews in 1940. Algeria, 120,000 Jews. Tunisia had 80,000 Jews, and Libya, had 30,000 Jews. The first three states were under the French protectorate, while Libya was under the Italian protectorate. France was occupied by the Nazis in 1940, which is known as “Vichy France.” The Germans ruled France, its colonies, and its protectorates. And this included: Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. In Morocco and Algeria, the infamous “Statut de Juifs” was established, which allowed the German authorities to confiscate the property of Jews, severely restrict their activities, and prohibit their access to education, etc. They also established about 30 labor camps to build the trans-Sahara road, and for that, the Germans recruited about 4,000 Jews from Morocco and about 1,000 Jews from Algeria. It should be noted that there was a big difference between these labor camps and, for example, Auschwitz or Bergen-Belsen. In the North African “labor camps,” only adult and able-bodied men arrived at first. Dozens of them died due to unsanitary working conditions, scorching heat, disease. But the vast majority survived. The camps in Europe, on the other hand, were “extermination camps.” Children, the elderly, women, and men who could not work were immediately exterminated in gas chambers. And for the men and women fit for work, they were made to work but ultimately to be killed. This horrible strategy, not so well known, has a “name” in the German language. The expression is: Vernichtung durch Arbeit, “killing Jews through forced labor.” Returning to North Africa on November 8, 1942, and B”H before the Nazis could carry out the process of deportation and extermination of the Jews, Allied forces led by General Montgomery arrived on the coasts of Morocco and Algeria and were able to defeat the Nazis-led by General Rommel in a military operation called “Operation Torch.” (see map above).

THE OLDEST JEWISH COMMUNITY OUTSIDE OF ISRAEL

Tunisia is a separate story. Tunisia was the only country in North Africa directly occupied by the Nazis. To begin, the Jewish population of this country, the smallest in the region, constituted 15% of the total population. Jews lived in the capital (of the same name) and on the famous island of Djerba. According to tradition, a group of Cohanim (priests) who served in the Temple of King Solomon escaped to Djerba when the Great Temple of Jerusalem was destroyed in 586 BCE. They brought some stones from the Bet HaMiqdash which they used to build their synagogue there. To this day, the majority of Jews in Djerba – more than 60% – are Cohanim, something that has recently been confirmed in DNA tests that detect the Cohanim gene. Djerba is one of the few surviving Jewish communities in the Arab world. One day after the “Torch” operation began on November 9, 1942, the Germans occupied Tunisia. Rommel’s idea was to regroup in that country and repel the Allied forces from Morocco and Algeria and the British forces from Egypt. Within days of arriving, and despite being occupied with fighting the Allied forces, the Germans ordered the leaders of the Jewish community to provide them with all the data about the community. Thousands of Jews were taken to labor camps to build military roads (the vast majority survived). More than 200 Jews from that country were transported directly to Europe, where they were exterminated in concentration camps. B”H in May 1943, the Allies defeated and expelled the Germans from Tunisia, and the loss of Jewish lives was not higher.

I refer to the history of the Libyan Jews during the Holocaust in a separate article (see here)

WHO WAS NOT INCLUDED IN THE FINAL SOLUTION?

A final reflection on something horrifying. On January 20, 1942, the infamous Wannsee Conference took place, which is a small town near Berlin. At that conference (see here), the Nazi leaders gathered with the purpose of evaluating and strategizing “the final solution” to the Jewish problem. Among other things, they mentioned the number of Jews that had to be eliminated in France. This list indicated 700,000 Jews. But in France, there were only 350,000 Jews! Historians say that the only way to understand this difference in numbers is that the Nazis planned to exterminate all Jews from the countries under French protection: that is, Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia…

I have always defined myself as “a Holocaust survivor.” The simple reason is that, as with North Africa, the intention of the Nazis’ final solution did not end in Europe. God forbid, if the Nazis had triumphed in Europe, then the Jews of North Africa, the Middle East, and perhaps even the Americas would also have faced the executors of the final solution.

We all are Shoah Survivors

IZKOR

The night of the Seder is different from all other nights—not just because we eat Matsa and bitter herbs, but mainly because on this night, we educate ourselves and our sons and daughters about our history: how the children of Israel came to Egypt, thrived, were enslaved by Pharaoh, and were ultimately rescued by our God.

The Seder night is dedicated to all the guests, family, and friends who partake in the Seder with us, particularly our children. “Seder” means “order,” which refers to the program of 15 steps established for this special night. But it’s not enough to have a script; you also need an MC to run the Seder, keep the children awake, and prevent the adults from getting bored. The person leading the Seder should take their role seriously and feel responsible for the success of this event.

At the Seder, we fulfill one of the most important and beautiful Mitsvot of the entire Tora: Sippur Yetsi’at Mitsrayim, recounting the story of the Exodus from Egypt.

I will now give five brief tips about what the MC must do to make the Seder as successful as possible.

1. DIVIDE AND CONQUER

It’s essential to divide and assign the texts of the Haggada among the participants—who will read what part, and whether they will read it in Hebrew or English. Everyone participating is expected to read a paragraph, so the MC should communicate to the guests which parts they are responsible for, so they can prepare to read them well.

Young people and adults can participate by sharing explanations and comments about the symbols and foods of the Seder. For example: What is Matsa? What is the process to make Matsa? Why do we eat Matsa? Or why do we eat charoset, drink four cups on this night, or eat reclining on our left side? It would be great if the MC sent all participants the subjects they are to explain, along with links to ensure that their explanations are informative rather than opinion-based.

Here are some helpful links:

• WHY CHAROSET?
• WHY MATSA?
• WHY FOUR CUPS?
• WHY DO WE EAT RECLINING ON OUR LEFT SIDE?

The MC should also tell the “speakers” to limit their time to no more than two or three minutes—especially if these explanations are presented before dinner.

2. BE RELEVANT!

On that note, the MC should save deeper or potentially debatable subjects for after dinner.

Presenting a subject and then briefly discussing it makes the Seder more exciting and participatory. Let me share some ideas about slavery, for example, that can be discussed and compared with contemporary situations or events:

DEMONIZATION OF JEWS
One of the biblical paragraphs most highlighted in the Haggada is from Parashat Ki Tabo (Deuteronomy 26:6). It says that the Egyptians “demonized” us (vayare’u otanu) as part of their effort to turn public opinion against the Jews, portraying them as enemies of the nation and justifying their enslavement.
Question: In our days, are Jews, the State of Israel, or the Israel Defense Forces still being demonized? Are lies spread or used against Israel or its army to harm its image?

CHANGE OF GOVERNMENT
Slavery began with a change of government in Egypt. According to some commentaries, it was not just a new king but a different dynasty, one that hated the previous regime—which had been friendly to the Jews—and sought to cancel the Jewish people.
Question: Does a change in government—especially when a new political party comes to power—still affect Israel and the Jews today, in 2024? For instance, consider Brazil and Argentina and their relationship with Israel over the last two years.

SLAVERY
Is forced labor the only form of slavery you know? Does “mental slavery” exist in modern times—for example, when certain ideas or values are promoted or suppressed by media or governments to serve political agendas?
Question: Is it easier or harder to think freely for ourselves today than it was 50 years ago?

3. CHILDREN

All I’ve mentioned so far applies more to adults or teenagers. It is important that the adults are motivated to participate, learn, and engage in discussions. But we must also consider the children—”the main protagonists of this night.” The MC should ask parents to help their children prepare readings, explanations, or words of Tora they learned in school.

It would also be extremely nice to encourage the children to show and explain the drawings and art pieces they created at school to all the participants. Again, the more we prepare in advance, the better the results.

Children should also be encouraged to sing the primary songs of the Seder and, if possible, prepare a short play about the encounters between Pharaoh, Moshe, Aharon, the Ten Plagues, etc.

We will celebrate the first night of the Seder B”H  Saturday night, April 12th, 2025

מקימי מעפר דל מאשפת ירים אביון
להושיבי עם נדיבים עם נדיבי עמו

“From the dust, God raises the poor to sit with the nobles of his people.” Psalms (113:7-8)

ACTING FOR THE LITTLE ONES
One of Pesach’s most important mitzvot is the Seder’s celebration. At this very special festive dinner, we celebrate our departure from Egypt and the end of our slavery and thank God for rescuing us. During this dinner, we read the story of the exit from Egypt and we perform certain rituals to recreate and reenact the experience of slavery and freedom. We do this following the indication of the Sages who said that during that night, “one should ‘show himself’ (i.e.,  בכל דור ודור חייב אדם להראות את עצמו, “act” ) as if he had come out of Egypt.” The Pesach Seder, for this reason, requires a stage decor designed to “dramatize” slavery and freedom and thus entertain our children, that is, educate them without boring them in the process! This is why it is obligatory to serve during the Seder maror –bitter herbs–and charoset –a brown paste made with dried fruits, which looks like the mud used to make the bricks when we were in captivity. And on the other hand, during the Seder we drink four cups of wine to celebrate our freedom. Another “theatrical” gesture we do that represents freedom (cherut), is known in Hebrew as hasiba, reclining on our left side.

In the next lines, we will try to understand it better.

THE ROMAN TRICLINIUM
What is the origin and history of this custom? In ancient times, people usually sat down to eat on the ground, or slaves, who in Athens or Rome, for example, made up a large part of the population, ate standing up. But on celebratory occasions, nobles and aristocrats ate in “triclinium”, a set of three or six couches, arranged in a «U» shape– “… wide enough to accommodate three diners on each sofa, who reclined on their left side on cushions” (see here ). The small tables with trays (in Hebrew qe’arot) where the food was served were semi-individual, and as can be seen below in the illustration of an ancient Roman mosaic, they were placed inside the U. What is also seen in this mosaic is that the diners did not eat sitting on the couches but reclining on their left side. Why did they recline on the left side? The Sages explained that reclining on the left side decreases the risk of choking, but it seems that the more practical reason for this custom, as seen in the mosaic, is that most diners used their right hand to eat, and that is why they reclined on their left arm.

PRETENDING TO BE NOBLES

Now we can understand a little better the symbolism of the hasiba. The Sages of the Talmud established that to “act” as free men on the night of the Seder we must imitate the nobility and the aristocracy by eating while reclining on our left side. That night, all Jews, from the poorest to the wealthiest, sit and eat as free and noble people do, imitating not only the etiquette but also the status of the nobility. For this, I believe, the Sages found their inspiration in the verse of Tehillim that we recite in the Hallel on the night of Pesach, which states that God “raises the poor out of the ground and makes him ‘sit/ recline’, ‘next to/ like’ the nobles.

TIME FLIES
Over time the universal custom of eating on the triclinium fell into disuse. And some European rabbis, such as Ra-aban (Abraham ben Nathan de Provence, France, 1155-1215), proposed to interrupt this custom, since in Europe the nobles already sat on chairs around a table, and reclining would be an anachronism. But the vast majority of the rabbis insisted that we should preserve this ancient custom. They even asserted that if we do not recline when eating the Matsa or drinking the cups of wine, we are not obligated to behave like nobles (derekh cherut). Interestingly, other rabbis justified the re-adoption of this ancient tradition by reassigning it to a different but very important category in the Seder: shinui, that is, the parent’s obligation to dramatize unusual gestures during that night in order to attract the attention of the main audience of this theatrical work: our children, stimulating their curiosity and provoking their questions.

THE BEGINNING OF FEMINISM?
Another issue that has been discussed for centuries is whether women also had to recline during the Seder. The Talmud says ‘no’. And this is better understood when we consider that at that time, it was not part of the protocol for women to participate in the triclinium (in the Roman mosaic shown above, we can only see men). However, sometimes the Talmud mentions ishá chashuba,  important women, nobles, or close to the emperor’s family who belonged to this privileged elite. They were known in Latin as “matrons”, see here , (matronitá in the Gemara). Based on this, some rabbis from the Middle Ages, especially from Europe (Tosafot, Rama, etc.) said that women should also recline at the Seder, since all “Jewish wives should be considered important women.” And who can oppose to that? Today it is expected that both men and women equally participate in the custom of the hasiba.