This is the message I sent to congregants of Tzedek Chicago for my weekly email message today:

Dear Haverim,

As I write these words, there are reports that three Palestinian nonviolent protestors have been killed and scores more injured in the second week of protests at the Gaza border. By some perverse serendipity, both last week and this week’s massacres have occurred on Jewish holy days – the start and the end of Passover. For many of us, it has been difficult, if not impossible, to get into the spirit of the festival. How on earth do we remember our ancestors enslavement and celebrate our liberation amidst reports of Israeli snipers shooting down nonviolent protestors behind fences 15 kilometers away? How do we square the lessons of Passover with the Israeli prime minister’s cynical statement: “My respect goes to the Israeli soldiers who are guarding Israel’s borders, allowing Israelis to celebrate the holiday in peace.”

To those who are struggling to celebrate Passover amidst such sacrilege, I’ll quote from Tzedek Chicago’s core values:

We are inspired by prophetic Judaism: our tradition’s sacred imperative to take a stand against the corrupt use of power. We also understand that the Jewish historical legacy as a persecuted people bequeaths to us a responsibility to reject the ways of oppression and stand with the most vulnerable members of our society… As members of a Jewish community, we stand together with all peoples throughout the world who are targeted as “other.”

In other words, we assert the universal meaning of the Exodus story. This sacred narrative is not – and cannot – be about us alone. If we truly hold that God stands with the oppressed and calls out the oppressor, then Passover demands that we stand with the Palestinians of Gaza. Indeed, I wrote as much at the end of Passover 2016:

As I watch this tragic process unfold this Passover, I find myself returning to the universal lesson this festival imparts on the corrupt abuse of state power. Although the Exodus story is considered sacred in Jewish tradition, it would be a mistake to assume that the contemporary state of Israel must be seen as equivalent to the biblical Israelites.

On the contrary, any people who suffer under oppressive government policies are, in a sense, Israelites. And any state — even a Jewish state — that views a people in its midst as a demographic threat can become a Pharaoh.

I respect that the Passover spirit is not coming easily to many of us this year. I can only suggest that the most meaningful way we can observe the holiday – this year and every year – is to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

Shabbat Shalom and Chag Sameach,

Rabbi Brant Rosen