Regarding Hannah Dreyfus’ article “Liberation And #MeToo Collide At The Seder” (March 25): I am curious, has the seder become an annual soap box for attendees and their hosts to discuss anything and everything that has nothing to do with Passover?
Is Passover a holiday to discuss freedom and social justice for all of humanity? Sure, doing something and speaking out about injustices is important — but why at the seder? I always thought that the seder gives us the opportunity to remember our relationship with God and the purpose of our liberation from Egypt as well as the reasons we were in bondage in the first place. Didn’t God tell Abraham that his descendants would be slaves in a strange land? Were we freed to do as we please or to serve the Creator culminating with the Revelation at Sinai?
We are reminded of our liberation from Egypt daily in our prayers and also when we recite the kiddush on Shabbat. We read: “I am the Lord your God who took you out of Egypt to be your God” (i.e. follow the commandments of the Torah). Is tikkun olam a part of Judaism as well? Of course it is, but we read it only in the third paragraph of the Aleinu — “takein olam b’malchut Shadai” — improve the world under the kingship of God — not under the kingship of our personal agendas.
Roslyn Heights, L.I.
