A Message from Rabbi Neil Sandler

The Passover seder meal has just concluded. Stomachs are full. We have enjoyed a delicious meal and, possibly the last two years notwithstanding, the company of loved ones and friends who have joined us around the table. It's time to sing some of our favorite Passover songs and bring the seder to its conclusion. First, we must welcome Elijah to our celebration. We open the door for this enigmatic figure and offer words found in the haggadah.

For the last number of years in our family sedarim, we have offered words attributed to a 16th century haggadah manuscript:

Pour out your love on the nations who have known you and on the kingdoms who call upon your name…May they live to see the Sukkah of peace spread over your chosen ones and to participate in the joy of all your nations.

These words are infused with an inclusive, caring spirit that blends well with the sentiments we feel and share following our seder meal. They just seem to fit…but they are not the words that appear in most haggadot at this point in the seder. Instead, we read:

Pour out your fury on the nations that do not know you…Pursue them in wrath and destroy them from under the heavens of Adonai.

I do not like to utter these sentiments. They feel contrary to what my guests and I are feeling at the seder as we near its conclusion. But right now, as I write these words, they sadly and unfortunately resonate for me.

Like you, I think a lot about what is happening in Ukraine today.

In a place where the words "horrific," "tragic" and "unspeakable" have been regularly used to describe death and destruction for the past month, it seems difficult to imagine that any single instance of brutal murder might gain special notice. However, word of the death of Borys Romanchenko in a recent Kharkiv bombing caught my attention as well as the attention of many others both inside and outside the Jewish community. Mr. Romanchenko, age 96, was a Holocaust survivor. He persevered through imprisonment in four concentration camps, including Buchenwald. For several years, Mr. Romanchenko had served on a memorial committee for Buchenwald, a site where the 77th anniversary of its liberation is to be commemorated in less than a month. "Survived Hitler, murdered by Putin," tweeted Ukraine's Foreign Minister, Dmytro Kuleba.

"Survived Hitler, murdered by Putin."

While Vladimir Putin did not directly murder Borys Romanchenko, he is directly responsible for his death. Putin is directly responsible for every Ukrainian who has died in recent weeks and, sadly, will die in future days. He is directly responsible for the deaths of his own soldiers who have died at the hands of Ukrainians who have valiantly defended their land.

Vladimir Putin is not a "nation." Experts can debate the culpability, perhaps indirect, of the Russian people or a segment of it.

But this year, the words "Pour out your wrath…" will resonate in a way they have seldom resonated for me. While I am not certain we will offer them at our seder, we will use their presence in the Haggadah to spark discussion of this moment.

May Elijah, who we welcome to our homes with whatever words we choose to offer, soon arrive to portend the better time and world we seek.

And may the memory of Borys Romanchenko along with other innocent Ukrainians who have perished in recent weeks, be for a blessing that encourages all of us to work toward realizing that better world.