As the Chief Rabbi rightly says in our Pesach feature this week, every one of the Seders being held across the globe tonight will be different; and yet they will all be fundamentally the same. We all have our own rituals. But we also follow the same script. And, for many of us, there is no more wonderful festival than Pesach. For a people so focused on the family, the Seder is an expression of all that is so uplifting about the Jewish family — because it not only includes relatives but also friends and, where possible, strangers. And we gather every year for the retelling of the story of our enslavement, our exodus and our liberation.
It is a story that has had a different resonance throughout the centuries. In Israel — where “next year in Jerusalem” is a reality — there may soon be an existential threat from an Iranian regime that has hoodwinked the West. And to its long-standing enemies we must now add Daesh. In France, Jews have been repeatedly murdered simply for being Jews. Here in Britain, it would be wrong to exaggerate the threat we face. We have the full protection of the law and a government, like its predecessors, that is fully alive to the evils of antisemitism. And yet Jew-hatred is not only still alive but openly expressed in some quarters. It is salutary to remember as we celebrate our ancestors’ freedom that we, too, must be ever vigilant.
