Why is this Passover Different from All Others? We Celebrate Democracy in Israel | Passover haggadah by Rabbi Rachel Sabath Beit-Halachmi

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Why is this Passover Different From All Others? (Rabbi Rachel Sabath Beit-Halachmi, 2023)

[At this point in the seder the leader points to a small Israeli flag on the table or seder plate. Order one online here; print this one; or have kids/adults color this one here and add it to your seder table!]

On all other Passover Seder nights, we end the Seder by singing “Next Year in Jerusalem.”

This year, we begin our Seder by reading from Israel’s Declaration of Independence. Why? Because this year we know how precarious Israel’s democracy is and how important it is that basic freedoms are protected for all its citizens.

On all other Passover Seder nights since 1948, we celebrated the sovereignty of the Jewish-Democratic State and all the light, wisdom, creativity, and security it brings to the world.

This year, we celebrate Israel’s 75th year as a Jewish-Democratic State deeply concerned that the basic rights of its citizens are being threatened by its own government.

On all other Passover nights, we’ve celebrated Israel’s existence. This year, we rededicate ourselves to ensuring that the State of Israel upholds its foundational commitments of its Declaration of Independence to offer all its citizens “freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel.”

On all other Passover nights, we deepen our commitment to our Jewish identity and to the Jewish people– past, present, and future. This year, we also pledge to work together with Israeli citizens and the global Jewish community to ensure that the State of Israel upholds its basic ethical commitments, which we’ve celebrated for 75 years, “to ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex.” This year, we must speak out and help ensure that it remains true to its commitment to “guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions….”

On all other years we read only from the Haggadah, on this Passover, we begin our Seder by reading from Israel’s Declaration of Independence:

“ERETZ-ISRAEL [(Hebrew) - the Land of Israel] was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped. Here they first attained to statehood, created cultural values of national and universal significance and gave to the world the eternal Book of Books.

After being forcibly exiled from their land, the people kept faith with it throughout their Dispersion and never ceased to pray and hope for their return to it and for the restoration in it of their political freedom.

Impelled by this historic and traditional attachment, Jews strove in every successive generation to re-establish themselves in their ancient homeland. In recent decades they returned in their masses. Pioneers, ma'pilim [(Hebrew) - immigrants coming to Eretz-Israel in defiance of restrictive legislation] and defenders, they made deserts bloom, revived the Hebrew language, built villages and towns, and created a thriving community controlling its own economy and culture, loving peace but knowing how to defend itself, bringing the blessings of progress to all the country's inhabitants, and aspiring towards independent nationhood….

THE STATE OF ISRAEL will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations….

WE APPEAL - in the very midst of the onslaught launched against us now for months - to the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve peace and participate in the upbuilding of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions.

WE EXTEND our hand to all neighboring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighborliness, and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the sovereign Jewish people settled in its own land. The State of Israel is prepared to do its share in a common effort for the advancement of the entire Middle East.

WE APPEAL to the Jewish people throughout the Diaspora to rally round the Jews of Eretz-Israel in the tasks of immigration and upbuilding and to stand by them in the great struggle for the realization of the age-old dream - the redemption of Israel.

PLACING OUR TRUST IN THE ‘ROCK OF ISRAEL,’ WE AFFIX OUR SIGNATURES TO THIS PROCLAMATION AT THIS SESSION OF THE PROVISIONAL COUNCIL OF STATE, ON THE SOIL OF THE HOMELAND, IN THE CITY OF TEL-AVIV, ON THIS SABBATH EVE, THE 5TH DAY OF IYAR, 5708 (14TH MAY,1948).”

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KKU_EdCAimb3g7bU3Ogbcbyql01J42an/view?usp=sharing

haggadah Section: Introduction