A Passover Message from Rabbi Ari Kaiman

I’ve been thinking a lot about what it might have felt like on the night of the Death of the First Born.

If I were to have heard the cry of mothers who lost their sons, of every single home in Egypt that experienced death, I would feel… awe. The kind of awe inspired by horror and fear. I would recognize my powerlessness in the presence of the force of Destruction, so close at hand.

I would feel gratitude, that I listened to the instruction, offered the Passover lamb, and painted our door with its blood. I’d be grateful that my house, our people, were spared.

Mixed with the gratitude would be guilt. No matter how oppressive the Egyptians were, (and how bad could they have been considering the generation that left kept wanting to return) I wouldn’t wish this destruction on anyone.

Perhaps some among us felt no guilt or sorrow. Perhaps they accepted God’s judgment and plan as a matter of necessity. They oppressed us, God intervened, and every Egyptian receives the measure of God’s justice that they deserve.

Perhaps some were simply glad to still be alive.

In our Haggadot, we remove a drop of wine as we recite each plague. At my Seder tables, we always told the famous Midrash about God asking us not to sing as God’s children drowned in the Sea of Reeds. I was taught that even our worst enemies are made in the image of God.

A few years ago, I learned that the origin of that custom might have been related to the paragraph Shfoch Chamatcha – Pour out Your wrath on your enemies. As each plague causes further destruction to Egypt, we celebrate that we will be victorious and they will suffer on the way to redemption.

Another possibility is that we poured out the wine as a folk custom to add protection for ourselves. We don’t identify positively with our enemies, and we don’t celebrate their suffering, we simply want to survive the horror.

All of these interpretations are possible, that is part of the beauty of our interpretive religion. Perhaps one resonates more with you than another.
These layers of emotion — relief, horror, guilt, vindication, faith — aren’t just ancient. They are alive in us today.

We see them rising again as we react to our own use of power in response to the horrors that Hamas perpetrated upon us on October 7th.

I don’t know how horrific it must become before hardened hearts begin to break. I only know how powerless I feel in the face of history unfolding.

I wonder: are these challenging and conflicting feelings causing us to let a truth pass us by—because the conversation feels too risky, too uncomfortable, or too complex?

Are we still able to see one another—those of us who put Mezuzot on our doorways and proudly identify as inheritors of the Passover story, lovers of the people Israel, defenders of the State of Israel—even when we disagree about the correct interpretation of our ritual?

Because if we can’t, we risk letting not just a truth, but each other, pass us by.

Ari Kaiman is the Senior Rabbi at Congregation Shearith Israel.