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This Is Not a Passover for Despair

(JNS) Jonathan S. Tobin - Nothing, not even the 9/11 attacks, brought our world to an extended collective halt the way the effort to contain the coronavirus has done. Nor has anything prepared us for the way Covid-19 has taken such a toll. The list of those who have succumbed to it is growing. Among Jewish victims are a disproportionate number of persons who survived the Holocaust, or who have long served their communities as rabbis and scholars. Throughout thousands of years of history, Jews have celebrated Passover under far worse conditions. Today we live in a uniquely wonderful time in which liberation is not a dream or a metaphor, but a reality. When we conclude our seders by singing "Next year in Jerusalem," it's not a fantasy (assuming, as we must, that the world has gone back to normal). Our current situation of sovereignty and unprecedented strength in our historic homeland is a scenario that most Jews would have regarded as science fiction only a couple of generations ago.
2020-04-08 00:00:00
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