Do Hostages Celebrate Pesach?

Answer

This painful question was first asked long ago, by Jews who were themselves captives. They faced the dilemma of celebrating freedom in captivity, and recorded their response for all posterity.

It was a critical moment in Jewish history. The First Temple had been destroyed, the people taken captive to Babylon. For the first time since the Exodus from Egypt, Jews were again slaves to an enemy in a foreign land.

As the first Pesach approached by the rivers of Babylon, the people wept. How could they celebrate the Festival of Freedom when they themselves were not free?

The sages of the time needed to make a call. Should Pesach be cancelled? Or is it still relevant? Can captives celebrate freedom?

Their answer was unequivocal: we must celebrate. They composed a paragraph to add at the beginning of the Seder, explaining their rationale. We read it to this day at every Seder. It is not in Hebrew, like the rest of the Haggadah, but in the Babylonian dialect of Aramaic. It says:

This is the bread of affliction that our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt.

All who are hungry, come and eat. All who are in need, come celebrate Passover.

Now we are here. Next year in the Land of Israel.

This year we are slaves. Next year we will be free.

In a few words, the sages encapsulated the enduring relevance of Pesach, even in hard times. We may still be eating the bread of affliction. We are hungry and in need. It is hard to feel joy about miracles long ago when we are suffering today.

But Pesach celebrates much more than one single historical event. Pesach celebrates our inner, essential freedom. What Pesach gave us, no one can take away. Our external circumstances do not define us. Our enemies may capture our bodies, but they can’t touch our souls. Even when we are slaves on the outside, inside we are free.

This piercing message gave us hope even in the darkest times. During inquisitions, pogroms, crusades and expulsions, even in Auschwitz, Jews held Seders and read these words of hope, authored by the captive Jews of Babylon. In our most painful moments, we never lost sight of the freedom that is ours forever.

And so, we will celebrate our freedom again this Pesach. We pray that all hostages will be free to sit with their families and celebrate. And we pray that the visionary words of our ancestors finally come to fruition, that next year we will all be free, in a peaceful and secure Land of Israel.