In our lifetime we have seen an explosion of new Passover Haggadot and commentaries to aid us in leading a Pesach Seder. One of our favorite scholars and teachers is Dr. Erica Brown, who published a terrific book called Seder Talk.

In her book, Dr. Brown comments on the paragraph in the Haggadah that comes just before we recite the first part of Hallel (a group of psalms praising God). The paragraph begins לפיכך אנחנו חיבים להודות להלל . . . “therefore it is our duty to thank and praise . . . the One who has brought us out from slavery to freedom.” Noting especially the word לפיכך (therefore), she says that this “conjunctive adverb signals to the reader to pay attention to what has come before. Because God did so much for us, we therefore have almost no choice but to thank and praise God.”

“Gratitude,” Dr. Brown notes, “is not universal. The Haggadah is making sure that the impulse is deeply lodged within us.”

To further reinforce this point, Dr. Brown suggests that we go around the table at this point in the Seder and encourage people to thank God for something that has happened between last Passover and this Passover. And - we love this part - she says we should “try and be as specific as possible.”

Let us take Dr. Brown up on her suggestion.

From last Passover to this Passover, we thank God for making it possible for us to play a role in saving refugees from a savage war in Ukraine and providing humanitarian aid to hundreds of thousands who remained in the war zone. We thank God for giving us the privilege of bringing tens of thousand of new olim to Israel from Ukraine, Russia, Ethiopia and around the world, and for the opportunity to bring thousands of young adults from Eastern Europe and the rest of the world to Israel on journeys of learning and self-discovery. We thank God for our partners at the JDC, The Jewish Agency for Israel, ORT, IsraAid, the Israel Trauma Coalition, Chabad and so many others that we were able to support in the last year to do this vital lifesaving work.

We thank God for enabling us to help the victims of the earthquake in Turkey and Syria, especially with our partners at JDC.

We thank God for giving us the ability to organize security services that are saving lives every day through our Federations across North America, our LiveSecure funders, and our partners at the Secure Community Network, including the twenty five new community security programs established by Federations in the last year. We thank God for our partners in government who have supported our plea to increase public funding for security at the federal level through the Nonprofit Security Grant Program and through many states and localities. And we thank God for the opportunity to contribute to the security of Jewish institutions around the world through our partners at the Jewish Agency.

We thank God for being able to encourage a growing network of responses to the crisis in mental health that followed the Covid pandemic, and to all the human service agencies that are doing this work every day.

We thank God for the ability to provide leadership in every community to fight the rising tide of antisemitism. Our Federations and community relations councils are on the front line working with school boards, city and state governments, and business and civic groups to make them aware of the risks. And we thank God for the ability to stand with other communities that have been the target of violence and hate.

We thank God for the privilege of raising our voices in the free and democratic debates in our own countries and in our beloved State of Israel, and we thank God for the caring and concern of the many thousands that join in these efforts.

We thank God for the opportunity to partner with so many Jewish organizations – synagogues, JCCs, Hillels, camps, schools, youth groups, trip organizers and more – who work hard every day to ensure a vibrant future for everyone across our broad and diverse Jewish communities.

And we thank God for the honor of once again working with the dedicated, unselfish, and innovative leaders of the North American Jewish community whose caring and generosity has made all of this and more happen every single day from last year’s Seder until tonight, especially the volunteers and professionals with whom we join in leading our unique and precious Jewish Federation system. We pray that we will once again have the privilege to work with you all in the coming year.

The Haggadah continues its paragraph on gratitude to God in this way:

למי שעשה לאבותינו ולנו את כל הנסים האלה
“To the One who has performed all these miracles for our ancestors and for us.”

To which we say “Amen!”


!חג פסח כשר ושמח
A happy and kosher Passover to you all!