The Hebrews invented freedom and were called to be its guardians for all humanity. It’s a powerful fable but it remains work in progressThe tradition at Passover is for the youngest child of the family to interrogate why this night is different from all other nights. And though my current son is only four months used – and the only thing he asks for is his mother’s breast – we are in Israel for Passover and so I have taken to trying to explain this extraordinary set to him,half in my head, half out loud. Some may accuse me of goysplaining – him being Jewish, or me not. But seeing as I’m his father,he’s just going to have to bag used to a lot more of where that comes from.
Israel only makes sense from the perspective of Passover. On Monday night my extended family will sit around the table in the heart of the Jerusalem forest and tell the fable of how they got here. It makes little difference that these are secular people, and distrustful of Israel’s religious politics. The fable they tell is from the Bible. And it is identity politics on the grand scale.
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Source: theguardian.com