My Dear Friends,
I’m writing to you from Jerusalem where soon our eternal Capital, our undivided city, will be divided into lock-down zones. Many of you will also be separated from your loved ones. Too many of you will face the prospect of a Seder night alone, something I’m sure most of us never expected to experience.

Some of you are worried sick about loved ones who are ill, or are in mourning for those who succumbed to this terrible illness that targets the weakest and most vulnerable but also seems to settle with random deadliness on babies and young mothers and young men in the prime of life. Some of you may be ill yourselves. May God grant you and your loved ones a speedy recovery.

I remember the Passover Seder at the Park Hotel and how we crawled to safety before our Seder could even begin. We needed to decide in the aftermath of the horror: what next? Could we really sit down and have a Seder given all we had just been through? And what kind of Seder would it be? We opted to continue our Seder in another hotel nearby.

And as we read the words of the ritual, the Hallel of thanksgiving for our lives, the prayer for vengeance , the prayer for peace , the Seder took on a depth and meaning that made it – for me at least – my most meaningful Seder ever and one that will never be forgotten for good reasons as well as bad.

I wish you all such a meaningful experience this year.