From the Rabbi's Desk

Saturday night will mark the second 15^th of Nissan and thus the second time the Jewish people have observed פסח/Passover with members of our people in captivity. It’s the second time members of our people are not free. It’s on פסח that we celebrate the gift of freedom. It’s absurd that in the year 2025 there are people who are enslaved and being held against their will. Freedom is such a simple thing, yet it’s being withheld from our people and others around the world.

A year ago, I was part of a leadership mission to Israel with our Federation and we were blessed to meet the grandparents of Bar Kupershtein. They bravely sat with us less than half a year since their grandson had been kidnapped by genocidal terrorists. They sat with us and told us of their pain and heartache. Now that we’re more than 500 days into their personal crisis, and our national struggle, I think about them quite often. Just last week proof of life was seen by the world. It was also last week that his family and supporters gathered to celebrate his 23^rd birthday, his second in captivity. On that day, they told us about their surviving the Holocaust and immigrating to Israel. They told us how they survived their first Holocaust and now they were in the midst of their second one. Bar was working security at the Nova Festival and had paramedic training. On that morning as people were fleeing Hamas, he stepped up and helped people in need. All of that came to an end when he was captured, bound and sent to Gaza. Images of him in Gaza were seen quickly so it was clear he was abducted alive.

Bar’s grandparents explained that Bar had stepped up to help his parents because his father was paralyzed some years back and is confined to a wheelchair. He was paralyzed, and lost his ability to speak, while trying to save a girl. Since Bar’s capture, his father has been working to regain his ability to speak so he could advocate for his son. Bar is amazing and he comes from a strong and amazing family. I will have him in mind this year as I sit down to סדר/Seder and will be celebrating freedom and פסח on his behalf.

Here are some words from his father, Tal Kupershtein, that are featured in The Haggadah of Freedom, published by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum. His words are found on the page with the Four Questions and are clearly a commentary on the differences that are found on the night of סדר. He details what a dream it would be for Tal and his family for Bar to change the night for them all and to be together once again.

“I pray that on this seder night I will be able to state that what has changed for us on this night is that my son Bar came home. That he is no longer a hostage, that he no longer lives in darkness, that he is with us, out in the open and in the light. What will be different on this night is that Bar will recite the blessing over the wine, not I, nor my son Dvir. What will be different on this night is that we will be happy after a long period of sadness.”

Next time you’re in our building, you should find Bar’s poster in our lobby. It’s on the far end of the wall near the gift shop. Every time I walk by it, I think about his family and how we all must demand that Hamas “Let our people (Bar and all other hostages) go”.

May we have a sweet and wonderfully meaningful פסח this year. May we fill the world with light and joy and celebrate the gift that is freedom. May we recognize that, so long as there are some who are not free, our joy and our own freedom are diminished. In spite of that diminished light and joy, we will still rejoice, because that’s the only way we know to respond to their ugliness and darkness.