We can all be proud of how many Staten Islanders - and how many in our own congregation - went to the rally in Washington, DC on April 12. At that time, we heard speeches dedicated to supporting Israel and to wiping out terrorism. Ours is a nation of peace that uses the military only defensively when our people are attacked.
It is therefore important for us to review and analyze the famous paragraph, recited in the Haggadah, which seems to counter this peaceful intention because in it we ask G-d to destroy our enemies. This quote is familiar to all of us because it is said at the time when the door is opened and we wait for Elijah the prophet to enter. The prayer reads as follows:
Pour out Your wrath upon the nations that do not recognize You and upon the kingdoms that do not invoke Your Name. For they have devoured Jacob and destroyed His habitation. Pour Your anger upon them and let Your fiery wrath overtake them. Pursue them with wrath and annihilate them from beneath the heavens of the L-rd.
This prayer usually causes people to grimace every time it is said because it appears on the surface to declare that only Judaism is the true religion and that others have no place in the universe.
Upon closer examination, however, it turns out that this paragraph is really a prayer that G-d eliminate those who persecute Jews, not a vendetta against those who do not adopt the Jewish faith. Let us take a look at the source of this prayer. The first sentence, for example, is excerpted from Psalm 79, in which King David prays:
0 G-d, our enemies have entered our holy inheritance. They have defiled Thy holy temple. They have made Jerusalem into heaps. They have given the dead bodies of Thy servants to be food unto the fowls of the heaven, the flesh of Thy saints unto the beasts of the earth. They have shed their blood like water round about Jerusalem, with none to bury them. We are become a taunt to our neighbors, a scorn and derision to them that are round about us. How long, 0 L-rd, wilt Thou be angry for ever? How long will Thy jealously burn like fire? Pour out Thy wrath upon the nations that know Thee not. and upon the kingdoms that call not upon Thy name.
This prayer sounds amazingly contemporary. It describes the devastation wrought by Israel's enemies, the inhabitant's low morale, and the image of Israel in the eyes of the world. King David's prayer is that G-d remove these conditions, eliminate Israel's enemies, and allow Israel to live in peace.
Unfortunately, the peace of Israel has often had to be guaranteed by the elimination of Israel's enemies. No one in Israel wishes that peace come at such a price, because the loss of life occurs on both sides. We would rather have less land but be at peace. Our enemies, however, persist in taunting us, killing us, and ruining our cherished places because they do not accept our right to exist. We witness the world rallying in support of our enemy, accepting the inevitability of spilt Jewish blood but bemoaning the loss of Palestinian lives. Israel feels its back us up against a wall, its very survival threatened, tt has no choice but to respond militarily. It has no option. Yet at the same time, as was poignantly shown by a photo appearing in a major newspaper, the Israeli soldier dons tallis and tefillin next to his tank to pray for peace, for a world that would not have to include killing and bloodshed.
So when we recite this prayer on Passover, then, we are invoking G-d's protection to rid Israel and Jews everywhere of hatred and violence against Jews.
And so it shall be;
Amen.