Rabbi Howard Morrison

Allies in Faith

The traditional Haggadah contains a cluster of Biblical verses which were added into the Haggadah after the Crusades of the eleventh century. When we open the door for Elijah the Prophet, we recite the words, "Pour out your wrath on those nations who do not know your name, who devour Jacob. . . "

Much of the Pesach Seder and Haggadah focus on four thousand years of Jew-hatred. Consider not only Pharaoh, the central villain of the Pesach story. Reference is made to Lavan, the father-in-law of Jacob who sought to destroy Jacob through deceit. In the Haggadah, Laban the Aramean is a code term for the Roman Empire, the central villain of the second Temple period during which time much of the Haggadah and Seder were developed.

On Seder night, we read that in each and every generation there are those who rise to annihilate us. On an important level, Passover is a wakeup call to remind us of Jew-hatred in every generation. Since the aftermath of the Shoah, many of us add material to the Haggadah incorporating the evils of the Shoah into the Pesach experience. Today, on the last day of Pesach, we will add an additional memorial prayer which also focuses on the worst enemy of the Jewish people in the twentieth century. And, as we all know, the horrors of October 7, 2023 was the worst day in Jewish history since the horrors of the Holocaust.

For much of Jewish history, walls have separated Jews from majority cultural and religious groups surrounding us in the world. 

For much of Jewish history, the timing of Easter and Pesach was a cause of legitimate anxiety and concern. There was a time in the Middle Ages when Good Friday and Easter were used as opportunities to attack Jews and incite hatred with the blood libel accusation, charging that Jews took the blood of Christian babies for the purpose of baking Matza. Such a ridiculous accusation since any knowledgeable person knows that Jews must purge blood and never consume it. However, propaganda has a life of its own.

Fast forward - I am a spoiled kid raised outside of Boston. I did not know personally of anti-Semitism, though I learned about it in Jewish day school and was constantly educated by my parents.

Once I decided to become a rabbi, I dedicated part of my purpose in helping to tear down old walls and replace them with bridges between Jews and non-Jews. Thus, I became a reserve military chaplain for twenty years. To this day, one of my best friends is a Catholic Priest whom I met in the military and who lives and works in the Boston area. He attended my rabbinic ordination, and I attended his ordination as a Priest. In 2007, he and his dad drove up here to attend Elie's Bar Mitzvah.

In New Jersey, Long Island NY, and here in Toronto, being part of multi-faith clergy groups has been critical to my rabbinate. And then - As many of you have heard from me before, October 7, 2023 happened. Critical relationships broke down for many of us, not only rabbis. We questioned those whom we had thought were our non-Jewish friends. Their silence became deafening. Fortunately, for Rabbi Howard Morrison and for Beth Emeth, we made a new friend at our Kristallnacht commemoration service this past November. Now pastor David Larmour and the King Street Community Church are our friends. Finally, we are building interfaith bridges once again. While I wish our shul was in dialogue with many Churches and even Mosques, we start with one and go from there. The two communities visited each other in March, and we are planning the next program even as I speak today.

I would add - If we want our Christian neighbors to empathize with our pain and suffering, we must do the same when they are hurting, and when Christian communities are being targeted in various parts of the globe. While Jews and Christians had walls between us for almost two thousand years, we have begun to build bridges of dialogue, respect, and understanding over the last sixty years in particular, especially when the Catholic Church issued a new doctrine in the early 1960's called Vatican II, in which Jews were no longer seen as Christ killers, in which Jews are now seen as having a legitimate religious covenant with God, in which the Church no longer sees itself  as a replacement of the Holy Temple.

We Jews dare not forget our history. I continue to recite the passage, "Pour out your wrath," which entered the Haggadah after the Crusades. However, I also add a lesser-known text from the sixteenth century, "Pour out your love on those nations who do know Your name and who have shown love to the people of Jacob."

May we continue to strive to tear down walls and replace them with bridges - even as we must remember on this Yizkor day.

Chag Sameach,
Rabbi Howard Morrison