In just one week, we will gather with our families, friends, and communities at our Pesach/Passover Seders, sharing words of Torah, stories of the Exodus—both of our ancestors and of our own—and food. Many of us will gather in circumstances of abundance, whether in our own homes or at Pesach programs around the world. Wherever we are, and in whatever circumstances we find ourselves, we will say —before we even begin telling the story of our liberation—kol dichfin yeisei v’yeichol, all who are hungry come and eat. At the very same moment, hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children—on the brink of famine in Gaza—may be going to sleep or sleeping with empty stomachs, or staying up all night searching for food with their starving families. How can we say these words on Seder night knowing we did not do everything we in our power to feed the hungry?
That is why, this Pesach/Passover season, Jews around the world are gathering together to donate to UNICEF. After the killing of 7 members of World Central Kitchen two weeks ago, UNICEF is one of the only remaining international aid organizations still providing critical humanitarian relief in Gaza. It itself provides food and medical assistance to hundreds of thousands of Gazan children and their mothers, and is also relied upon by local NGOs for infrastructure and distribution. UNICEF is the most reliable and direct channel to feed starving children in Gaza right now. How can we hope to be free, as we do in the very next line of the Haggadah (“This year we are slaves, next year may we be free people”), if we do not exercise our own freedom of mind and conscience to do what is right?
