Dear Editor,
During this past Pesach seder I couldn’t help but think about the events of Oct 7. In the Haggadah passage that speaks of the 4 sons/4 characters of people, I started to think about the ‘rasha’ or the evil child who is proud of the distance he has from his family and the Jewish people. And while our formal response is, that this child would not have been saved from slavery in Egypt, one can’t help but also recognize that this ‘evil child’ showed up for the seder! Despite his attitude, the child still attaches some value to his family and people. Indeed, it’s not clear what kind of threat this child poses to the Jews. On the other hand, perhaps this child has not abandoned his people at all but is crying out for attention or other ways to better understand our peoplehood, our religion. By contrast I couldn’t help but think of those Jews on college campuses who were leading/participating in seders with Hamas supporters, Jews who express an affinity for those who raped, beheaded, burned and murdered our beloved brothers and sisters in Israel. These ‘Columbia University’ Jews (the historian Gil Troy refers to them as ‘Un-Jews’) were not kidnapped and expressing a Stockholm Syndrome but were volunteers to the Hamas cause. One can’t help but recall moments in history when we were betrayed by similar evil or zealotry, i.e., Pablo Christiani or similar Quislings who promoted our genocide. On Tisha B’Av, we remember the destruction of the Temples, one destruction attributed to ‘sinas chinam’, or baseless hatred among the Jews. The problem with this view, however, is that to zealots of the left or right, there is no such thing as baseless hatred. It is rationalized hatred derived from cold, calculated arrogance. In our daily morning prayers, we ask G-d to keep us far from these people whether they be Jew or non-Jew, so at the very least, we are not tainted. In our day we need to be resolute that these Un-Jews do not represent who we are.
Ray Warren
Amberley Village, OH