Inside Israel Today: Preparing for an Inspiring Seder

the truth is there is so much to be happy about here in the state of Israel's we have grown from such a small little Enclave now we have over eight and a half million residents you're listening to inside Israel today with your Hoffman on the land of Israel Network hello and welcome to inside Israel today here on the land of Israel network on the land of israel calm and we've had a tradition here on this show going back years now going back to the show on that other network that we had in which before holidays we speak to Rabbi Stewart Weiss the wonderful columnist in The Jerusalem Post who inspires so many people with his columns especially before holidays and I've kept a column that he wrote about Passover in ten talking points for Passover about ten years ago I've kept in my Haggadah and I've reviewed it with my children including just a few days ago and it still inspires me every year it also proves that I forget every year before Passover starts what we're supposed to say at the Seder and so that's why it's great that we have rabbi Weiss back here on the line rabbi thank you for coming back here on inside Israel today on the Land of Israel Network how is this year different than other years the to paraphrase the Seder well good good morning good day to all the listeners out there and thank you Gil Hoffman for your usually great radio broadcast that we all appreciate and enjoy well this Pesa you know in many ways of course every year we are going through the same ritual and the same reading from the same Haggadah about Tessa and as the Haggadah tells us in every generation there are those who stand up against us and wish to harm us but God always saves us and this of course is true as well this year because we are surrounded by a lot of hostile neighbors we are the subject of a lot of demonization and anti-semitism and so unfortunately that is no different than other years and we have to deal with it and the Haggadah warns us that this one this for better or worse is going to be something that we deal with on an ongoing basis on the other hand what's different this year is that we have this wonderful opportunity to celebrate the 70th year of Israel and particularly the our ancient and eternal capital of Jerusalem which having been declared officially by the United States as our capital is a wondrous event that has not occurred for 70 years something we've always wanted and waited for and we're very privileged to live in a time when this has come true the Haggadah itself virtually ends with this famous statement of LaShonda hey Bob you shall I'm next year in Jerusalem and so we are celebrating this year in Jerusalem and hopefully many years to come in our unified capital and we hope that not only the United States but other world powers will follow suit and will recognize Jerusalem for what it's always been and that is the eternal capital of the Jewish people and that's what history and geography and archaeology and everything else shows and we hope that we will be safe and sound and United in our wonderful country with Jerusalem as capital so this year saying next year in Jerusalem can be especially meaningful having a knowing that ish in the next few weeks there's going to be an American flag over an official embassy here in Jerusalem that definitely makes this year different than other years in the Seder perhaps even more special my next question to you then would be about the other event in which Passover is being referenced which is Netanyahu over the last few days it seems to be using the charoset myrrh or analogy over and over again Carosa listeners is a sweet dish made up of apples and walnuts among other things that we have at the at the Passover Seder Aurora bitter herbs and he said in a speech to Likud activists in his pre Passover toast on Thursday that there are people in this country who focus on the myrrh or insist on focusing on the bitter herbs but the majority focuses on the her Osen on the sweetness and then yesterday he did it again yesterday he when he was speaking after an investigation by police he said I will celebrate the holiday with plenty of corrosive and zero bitter herbs so rabbi what do you think about that analogy and do we really have to have tomorrow well I would say that you know there always is some bitter with the sweet and mr. Netanyahu who I respect very very much as a great leader in Israel's history and in Jewish history and I think mr. Netanyahu as well is correct and emphasizing that we really need to stress the positive and focus on the positive because there's so much positive yes there are some bitter times he's facing his own some bitter issues but the truth is that there's so much to be happy about here in the State of Israel there's so many good things which are surrounding us and as we look back and we see how much progress we've made where we have grown from such a small little Enclave of 600,000 in the opening years of the state now we have over eight and a half million residents and the country is just doing thank God phenomenally well and so although the Haggadah does indeed tell us that we have to remember the bitterness of the past and we have to deal with that but at the same time our focus is always forward and always sends something positive and I hope that it's going to be a positive outcome and year for our prime minister and the government as well you can only appreciate the sweetness after you've had the bitterness indeed rabbi a few weeks ago we had on our show the issue of migrant workers and the experts who I interviewed from the true slim post was Dan Eisenbud and I want to pay tribute to him on this show because enta and Eisenbud is no longer with us tragically and i recommend to our listeners to go back and listen to his brilliance from that show on the land of israel calm but the reason why I'm breaking this up here is that this coming Saturday night when in Israel we don't have a second stator like they do in the Diaspora there's going to be a Freedom Seder that the : ishyama Reform synagogue in which the McClatchy Sharelle organization that helps migrant workers is going to be focusing on the Seder and how it relates to the issue of migrant workers and what they're going through I don't know what to think about this do you have any thoughts about this rabbi well you know the the immigration question is very complex and multifaceted we are a compassionate people we always have been we come from diaspora that often mistreated us we have to reach out and we have to show compassion for others who are less fortunate and and indeed there are many of these immigrants who need who are fleeing from war-torn countries and our poor need help we must balance that of course with the fact that every country on Earth has to have its own immigration laws and decide who can and cannot become a citizen and how do you become a citizen and the flow of illegal immigration into any country is very problematic Israel in this administration has tried very hard to prevent a massive amounts of illegal immigration which is proper for those who have come here and are already here we have to try to find a solution so that Israel has to remain a Jewish state neighborhoods have to stay safe crime has to be kept down we have to whatever we do we have to do it with compassion and we have to try to really see both sides and help those where we can help them and for those that are here illegally and are breaking the law we have to deal with that as well so it is complex but hopefully we will find a way a Jewish way to deal with this problem and keep the country strong and secure while at the same time exercising a certain amount of restraint and compassion absolutely we who have been through slaves need to have empathy for people who are in difficult situations in in Israel and around the world and yet on the other side if this is a freedom Seder and they're being compared to the Jewish people does that make Israel like Pharaoh I don't know we'll take a break to allow people to think about that and when we come back we'll talk more about the educational aspects of the Seder stay with us hi this is Josh hastin host of Israel uncensored here on the land of Israel network tune in every Monday to hear the latest news coming from Israel plus interviews with top Israeli politicians media personalities and activists all doing their part to counter anti-israel propaganda and BDS don't miss a minute be sure to stream or download all of the amazing programming from a wide range of hosts here at the Land of Israel network on the land of israel calm and we're back here on inside israel today on the land of israel network where we are speaking to rabbi stuart wise columnist of the jerusalem post about Passover so perhaps the best Seder I ever had was a seder that I did a few hours before the Seder I just took my children and I said let's just review by focusing on the good parts we had the good food while we were singing the songs and and going over the most inspir racial parts of the Seder this is not Seder night itself and it felt very special the Seder itself though has a lot that has to be said there's a whole Haggadah where we're going through Hallel and the psalms that we say on a regular Shabbat morning and it's a bit long rabbi do we really have to say it all if we're goal is really to keep our children involved well we have our text and we can try to be creative within the context of the Haggadah but now I gotta contains a tremendous amount of wisdom We certainly have a priority to make this exciting and enjoyable for the kids to that extent we should try to move forward as quickly as we can to what we say the meat of the Seder where we're getting to the to the main to the matzah to the morrow to them to the meal of course to the songs so we want to make sure to balance by giving a lot of material and insights and wisdom at the same time to move forward it's there's no problem with people reading silently for a while which makes things go faster and then focusing in a few particular items I always try to focus on the Diana because the diana is such a beautiful song and the message which seems at first problematic it would have been enough would it have been enough if the sea was split and we did not cross to the other side and the answer to that is that we don't have to always look ahead of us we should appreciate and have gratitude for everything God does for us here right now at this moment what will happen tomorrow and the next day in the future well we'll take care of that when it comes but for now let's not worry too much about things to come when we have so much to enjoy right here and that's an important message of the Diana and of the Seder in general which is all about gratitude and so we want to impart certain messages to our kids into our family into ourselves and at the same time we know that that there's beautiful beautiful portions of the Haggadah so we can move fast when we need when we need to but certainly try to emphasize key points in living and that's what the hug that is all about so what would you add to the day I know if if the Robin Hood Rashid or whoever would be most mas to do that would say you know that they ain't no ends where it ends but a lot has happened to the Jewish people since how would you update it well I think if we could have a modern-day Diana Gill and this would make I think very attractive a best-seller that we would talk about all the great things that have happened to us since the state was established this the independence war in 48 and the six-day war in the UM Kippur War which is a great victory in the in gathering of the exiles and the rise of Israel's a technological and economic power and at any point along the way we can stop and say Diana this would have been enough this is great in and of itself and all the more as we go further and come further and we know that we're not done yet there's lots of other great challenges and achievements ahead of us and so we could easily write a brand new day a new just in the 70 years that we've been here at Israel by the time we get that hopefully that the Disneyland that they're talking about building and Damona will already be built and we can end with that or Michelle's coming and well one or the other so HOD god Yas another song it's very special in which we talk about the nations of the world coming and going or I guess being bitten by each other and in the end there's just one little goat why are the Jews why is Israel compared to a goat and what's the end of that story well we we are typically compared to a goat or sheep sometimes surrounded by 70 wolves representative of all these nations even today which surround us and which are malevolent and hostile toward us but certainly in history all these civilizations that came after and tried to destroy us and yet this little sheep this little seemingly helpless lamb always survives because we're protected by the almighty and that is of course the the symbol and it's really a very very potent idea this song that ends the technically ends the petcock Seder is actually a lovely way to keep children interested it's a very singalong type of a ditty but at the same time it sends an important message that throughout history we again this whole idea of there were those who will rise up against us but God always protects us he's the faithful of Father guarding to go to the Sheep and as long as we do our share we remain faithful Jews then God is always going to protect us so that's a beautiful way to end the Seder now this year is a little strange in that we're having another day at the end there around the world the holiday lasts for eight days and for us it lasts only seven and then comes Shabbat can we buy our comets back like in the split second between when pass-off ends and Shabbat begins and then be able to have the whatever we snuck away and sold it can we like buy it back this year is again unique in that it will all Jews will have eight days for spending together for Passover for us the last day is actually the eighth day is really the day after Passover for the Diaspora it's the last day the eighth day of the Passover will be together and that's a great thing we will be on separate tracks for the Torah reading for six weeks because we'll start restart our Torah reading already on the eighth day whether they espen will wait a week but we'll get back together in six weeks again when we combine and be back at the same tour reading so an interesting little footnote to this eight-day holiday that's really beautiful that will be all there together I want to ask you the most controversial question and I'm going to say in advance that they will not necessarily take this as a shock as a an opinion of Jewish law that it will have to obligate me but how do you handle that the question of kidney ode that thousands of years ago looked like comets so the rabbi's made a offense and said that you can't eat various products that now are very much a part of a lot of basic products and in Israel in particular because safar diem never adopted the custom of not having kidney out the way Ashkenazim did most of the products on the Shelf do indeed contain kidney out if we're modern Israel and we're all together shouldn't we be eating the same thing rabbi ever since I came to Israel 26 years ago we've been asking the same question when are we all going to be on the same page in terms of the diet why do we have to keep the laws of kidney out well this is a complex issue because it's a decree that was accepted by the Ashkenazi community it's not so easy to just do away with a degree maybe we would if we had the apparatus but then again maybe they would add certain other foods that we can't eat so who knows but we have modified it a bit in that today in today's day and age there are many authorities that say derivatives of the kidney out although we might not eat eat the rice or corn or beans or peas but we might have the derivatives certain soy derivatives like lecithin or certain oils like canola that many authorities permit probably so some day perhaps we may come together on this issue I'm not all that optimistic it will happen but there's always a lot of talk about it and always a lot of sentiment to do it but so far no binding authority that really stands up and says yes you can do it with a full conscience one way to get around it as two of my daughters did thank God they married Sephardic husbands and now they and their families are eating whatever they want in terms of the hit knee out on Pesa I would close by saying that it is the 70th year of Israel it's a wonderful occasion King David in a sound said that the normal age of a person is 70 that may be true about individual but for a nation we are still very very young 70 is really just a child we have so much room to grow and there's so many more things to accomplish on top of all the miracles that we have performed here and so even in the 70th year we look back and reflect on how great a country we have built magnificent country but at the same time we know that we have a great future ahead of us and that we're going to accomplish even more and we will hopefully do this in consort with a much more friendly world and indeed we will be that light into the nations that the prophets always urged us to be and I think we have been to a great extent in leading the world and many issues of morality and discovery and creativity and we're going to do much more in the future so to all the listeners to Gil and to everyone connected with the radio show have a wonderful pets out hug at the chair of a Sameach and enjoy your fader rabbi steward wise Raanana and columnist of The Jerusalem Post thank you so much for coming here on inside Israel today on the Land of Israel network on the land