Translation by Yehoshua Siskin
When we landed back in Israel after our flight from the United States, we traveled from Ben Gurion Airport directly into quarantine. Along the way I tried to "steal" as many glances of the passing scene as possible but what I saw did not gladden my heart. Empty highways and streets, closed stores, but in spite of it all – the Land of Israel.
We heard news on the radio and I suddenly noticed that all the main headlines had to do with holding a Seder. The prime minister, senior officials in the Health Ministry, the IDF – all of them were telling us how to prepare, updating and calming and instructing the public how in spite of everything to celebrate the holiday. Of course, we would have to observe the restrictions and could not go visit grandpa and grandma and not even our parents – but all the chaos did nothing more than expose our enormous love for holding a Seder.
Throughout the world, everyone was caught up with news about the coronavirus. But in Israel the news was all about holding a Seder despite the virus. There is only one place in the world where that was the main headline. More than 3,300 years after that dramatic night in which we went out from slavery to freedom, virtually 100% of the Jews in Israel feel that this story is not yet finished. They well recall that something great happens each year at the Seder and seek to connect to it.
