Rabbi Uziel’s Passover Question: Why Be Jewish?

On the Jewish night of big questions, Former Israel Chief Sephardic Rabbi Ben-Zion Meir Hai Uziel had one big question for all of us: Why be Jewish?

In asking this question, he reached out to all Jews – religious, secular, Sephardi and Ashkenazi, old and young, in Israel and in the diaspora – urging us to use the Seder as a symposium exploring the meaning of Jewish identity:

Mah Nishtanah – what makes this night different – reflects a much larger question we ask on Passover: what makes being Jewish so different? It is this question that must occupy us the night of Passover around the table. All of the symbols of the Seder – the foods, the customs, the texts – are not here to represent themselves as individual ideas or concepts, rather they all point to the much larger issue of what it means to be a Jew.

Rabbi Uziel’s vision of Mah Nishtana looms much larger than the traditional chanting by our children of the four questions in the Haggadah. While it’s symbolically beautiful to initiate the youngest ones at our Seder to ask questions, Rabbi Uziel has all of us asking a much bigger Mah Nishtanah. In his words:

Mah Nishtanah is less a question about what makes this night different, but more so a question about what makes us different as Jews?

Imagine that. A Passover question asking us to contemplate what makes us different as Jews? It is customary in many circles to use the Passover narrative and the Seder to express what makes our “master story” so global and universal. Themes of homelessness, sensitivity to the suffering of others, wars all over the world and the stories of other peoples are often invoked as the themes which will make our Seder more meaningful. While all of those are important messages, do we ever use Passover as an evening to ponder what makes us different and unique as Jews?

Rabbi Uziel was no stranger to homelessness, suffering and war. Born in Ottoman Palestine in the Old City of Jerusalem in 1880, he lived through two world wars, the Holocaust and terrorism and war in the Land of Israel. Throughout these global events that cost humanity millions of lives, he always demonstrated sensitivity to the suffering of others, while also reaffirming his own Jewish identity and uniqueness.

“Why would Passover, of all holidays, be the night when we especially engage in the Mah Nishtanah of being Jewish?” he asked. “Because Passover represents the birth of Judaism. It’s the night when we engage in our roots and origins, not to study the past, rather to contemplate our present and our future.”

Are we bold enough to understand Jewish identity on its own terms and merits? Can our Passover Seder ask our kids to talk about what makes them proud to be Jewish?

Can we use our Seder this year to ask Rabbi Uziel’s Mah Nishtanah about Jewish identity and uniqueness? Are we bold enough to understand Jewish identity on its own terms and merits?

Can our Passover Seder ask our kids to talk about what makes them proud to be Jewish?

In order to facilitate this discussion, here are four new Mah Nishtanah questions that evoke the spirit of Rabbi Uziel’s big Jewish question:

1. Mah Nishtanah – What makes up our national character as a Jewish nation?

2. Mah Nishtanah – What makes our philosophy and worldview different and unique?

3. Mah Nishtanah – Why is being Jewish special in today’s world?

4. Mah Nishtanah – What is the value of Jewish identity, today and in the future?

In a world where Jewish organizations spend enormous amounts of time and financial resources trying to strengthen Jewish identity, it would behoove all of us – old and young, Sephardi and Ashkenazi, secular and religious, in Israel or in the diaspora – to address Rabbi Uziel’s big Jewish question at our Seder.

The way he frames it, Mah Nishtanah is the biggest question we can ask.

Hag Sameah.

Rabbi Daniel Bouskila is the Director of the Sephardic Educational Center and the rabbi of the Westwood Village Synagogue.