Rabbi Philip Scheim, Beth David Congregation

My most memorable Pesah Seder took place four decades ago, at the Moscow apartment of Refusenik and activist Yuli Kosharovsky, of blessed memory. Seated around the crowded table were Yuli’s students, who diligently attended his clandestine Hebrew classes, all preparing for the Aliyah to Israel for which they had been struggling and suffering. The Haggadah’s words: “Now we are enslaved, next year, may we be free” recited at that table, unimaginably powerful at the time,gave me the feeling that we were seated at the front lines of Jewish history,where our people’s resolve would force redemption to come.

Passover 5780 will become a story that will be shared at future Sedarim, when, God willing, a sense of normalcy will be restored. We will retell how we carried on during this year of struggle, and how we never relinquished the hope captured at the Haggadah’s conclusion, of Next Year in Jerusalem, of a future of dreams fulfilled, of the restoration of good health, optimism and opportunity,notwithstanding the trials of the moment.