By Howie Stanger and Pele IrgangLaden

This week I decided to not write about the Parshat, which is Shemini. Instead I wanted to share a few words on Passover.

For those of you who don't know the Passover story, see this link. During Passover, just like many other holidays which culminate in a lovely dinner, we often retell a stories with the theme of, “They tried to kill us, and we survived, so lets eat.” For a little context on my thoughts, I will present you with a short anecdote from my weekend two weekends ago at the J Street Summit.

Avraham Burg, the former Speaker of the Knesset, was one of our main guests. Burg is often associated with his book that deals with memories of the Holocaust in Israel and worldwide Judaism. Since then, I cant stop thinking about these themes and how they relate to Passover.

The Passover story focuses on the Jews’ exodus from Egypt and their(our?) escape from bondage. We are taught to include ourselves in this story. What is the purpose of this? Does this teaching encourage us to act as if we are perpetually victims? Or to remember the times when we collectively overcame adversity?

Every year we retell the story to understand what it was like to be slaves. We are supposed to never forsake the stranger because, “we too were once strangers.” We are made to feel this way, and to place a responsibility on our shoulders, a responsibility to free people from bondage because we too were once slaves.

Simultaneously, the Passover story teaches us that we are victims and it is our job to liberate victims of oppression. How can we both liberate the oppressed while protecting ourselves? It places a complicated value of preserving the Jewish people and prosperous nature, while fighting to liberate those that are sometimes directly affecting by our prosperity.

So reflecting on this, we ought to examine the role we play of the betterment and protection of the Jewish people and Jewish spirit vs. The betterment of all peoples.