Why is this night different from all other nights? Why is this Passover different from all other Passovers?

On this Passover, when a pandemic is still threatening our collective health on an unimaginable scale, we are called to respond with the power of our humanity, with the Divine spirit implanted within us, with our legacy of hope and determination to prevail.

We pray for the vaccines to be available to all and that they work for all of the new hybrids bouncing around the world. 

We pray for those who have dedicated their lives to keeping us healthy—doctors, nurses, health-care workers—and all who sustain our hospitals and health-care institutions—existing and makeshift—operating under trying circumstances.

We pray for the first responders—police officers, fire fighters, military personnel who have been marshalled to the cause—all who are responsible for the safety of our communities.

On this Passover, we are thankful that we are able to come together tonight via ZOOM from all parts of the country and the world. Not “all who are hungry can come and eat” and not “all who are in need can come and celebrate Passover.” In response, we commit all the days of our year to a heightened awareness of Passover’s values—to freeing the enslaved, to feeding the hungry, to sheltering the homeless, to supporting the poor. We rededicate ourselves to rekindling and cherishing our Passover traditions for all the years of our future, when light will overcome darkness, when health will overcome infirmity.

Dear God, “Spread over us Your canopy of peace . . . Shelter us in the shadow of Your wings . . .Guard us and deliver us. . . Guard our coming and our going, grant us life and peace, now and always.”

“This year we are slaves, next year we will be free.”

Edited from last year's  Passover 5780/2020 • Rabbi Noam E. Marans • AJC Director of Interreligious and Intergroup Relations


haggadah Section: Introduction
Source: AJC.ORG