There is some wisdom my grandmother used to say that she learned from my great-grandmother. She said, never wish something bad on someone else lest what you wish happens to you. 2)

In the Torah, the Pharoh threatened Moses, saying that he would order the death, for the second time, of the Hebrew first born males to kill their demands for freedom. It was not just to have Hebrew first born dead, 3)

but to reduce the number of men that could rebel, and to create an excess of females to assimilate into Egypt.

But when he wished for death among our people, death came to his people, and even his own house.

Just like my grandmother and great-grandmother said. 4)

And our ancestors were warned, “Shelter in Place” to avoid that plague, and mark the doorposts of your homes while you take shelter, while death rolled though Egypt and the firstborn of Egypt were sickened and died. 5)

This Pesach is not the first that we have been forced to make sacrifices for survival. Our people has done, again and again, what we had to do, to keep, to remember, to celebrate, Pesach, 6)

under some of the most desperate times over the past 3400 years, and particularly over the last 2000 years.

This year, like last, will be difficult with inflation, the leftover fears of Covid, and the increase in violence everywhere.
7)

But nothing compares to what our people had to do to remember Pesach during the wars with Rome, during the massacres of the Middle Ages when the coincidence of Easter often made it a time of pogroms and horor for Jews in Europe, and then there was the Holocaust.
8)

And when there is no crisis, no situations of desperation for most of us, it is a terrible shame when some Jews choose to ignore what makes this holiday special by ignoring the traditions that have sustained us and our identity for 3400 years.
9)

Our Sages tell us that if we fail to refrain from Chometz during Pesach we will be cut off from our people. That clearly does not mean that lightning will strick us dead.
11)

What it does mean is that over time, those who do not want to recognize thius basic holiday of our identity as a people, will eventually lead to that person no longer over the generations being part of us. History has shown that to be correct.
12)

All we can do is do what we have to — and try while we do it — to remember what this Pesach means, what all Pesach’s have meant, a celebration of our freedom and aspirations, and our nationhood, and to know that next year will be better, 13)

and we’ll all have stories to tell about what is happening now.

And to those that wish us ill, to those who threaten us, from Teheran to Ramallah,to the capitals of countries that cultivate or even tolerate hate towards us, watch out. There will be justice. 14)

My Great-Grandmother said so." 15)