Four questions for Pesach this year

1. Can Jewishness be built on threat?

Over the past couple of years, JPR data show that many Jews have turned inward, seeking solidarity with one another as the world feels more hostile. That instinct is understandable: when groups feel under pressure, they often circle the wagons. But Jewish history also offers a warning; identity built primarily on fear becomes brittle. It produces vigilance, not vitality. It may generate solidarity, but it rarely offers a compelling reason to remain Jewish beyond survival.

The seder recognises this tension. It fully acknowledges that “in every generation they rise up against us to destroy us.” But it embeds that threat within a larger narrative of faith, hope and continuity. It does not allow antisemitism – however close or real – to define who we are. If our Jewishness is based more on what ‘they’ out there think of us than on what Jewish tradition, culture and heritage teaches us, it will be remarkably difficult to sustain over time. So what foundations is our Jewishness built on today, and are those strong enough to endure?

2. Can Jewish identity survive profound ethical conflict?

For other Jews, the challenge is not external hostility but internal moral dissonance. Many experience Judaism as an ethical inheritance – a commitment to responsibility and justice, however understood. When Israel is accused of grave wrongdoing, some feel a painful rupture: between solidarity and conscience, or between belonging and moral coherence. And for some, this leads to distancing – a sense of not wanting to be associated at all.

The seder was designed for precisely this kind of tension. The ‘Four Questions’ are not there to produce agreement; they exist to prevent silence and simplicity. Pesach insists that Jewish identity is sustained through questioning, discussion, interpretation and moral wrestling – not uniformity. Judaism has never been ethically tidy. And the moral questions today are real and urgent – perhaps more real and urgent than they have ever been. If the conversation feels easy, we may be missing something essential. But if it tears us apart, we may be damaging something essential.

3. Are we still one people if we cannot recognise each other?

Alongside fear and moral conflict sits a quieter, structural issue: fragmentation. Some Jews are doubling down on religious intensity and collective orthodoxy; others are moving further into secular, individualised expressions of identity. Across the community, the centre feels thinner than it once did. That raises an existential Pesach question: what story can we still tell together?

The seder stresses that the ‘together’ matters. Identity is not only cognitive; it is relational. People commit to communities not because of questioning and argumentation, but because they find people to engage with. And the seder remains one of the most widely shared Jewish spaces precisely because it is capacious: it has room for sceptic and believer, child and elder, confidence and doubt. All those voices enrich the conversation if we can uncover the values that underpin them. And we need those voices now. Right or wrong, we need their ideas, energy and creativity.

4. Is Jewish identity something we inherit — or something we choose?

When Jewish life feels fragmented, and when fewer Jews are sure they recognise one another as part of the same collective, a deeper question emerges: under what conditions does Jewish identity still feel worth committing to? In moments of crisis, Jewishness can begin to feel imposed rather than chosen – something forced on us by history, threat or expectation. Identity becomes reactive: something that happens to us rather than something we actively inhabit.

The seder warns against this. One of its most radical instructions insists that “in every generation, each person must see themselves as if they personally came out of Egypt.” Pesach places us inside the narrative, not as observers but as participants, and asks whether we are willing to step into a demanding, unfinished story that requires interpretation, responsibility and choice. In this way, the seder models a Jewishness grounded in agency: the freedom to question, wrestle and disagree while remaining part of a shared story. It suggests that the most enduring Jewish identity is not the one we are pushed into under pressure, but one we consciously choose to carry forward.

Pesach does not ask us to resolve these questions before we sit down at the seder table. It assumes, instead, that Jewish life is rarely lived at moments of clarity or consensus. The Haggadah was never designed for calm times or easy agreement; it was built precisely for periods of uncertainty, pressure and disagreement. And its genius lies not in offering answers, but in insisting that questioning itself – conducted in relationship, at a shared table, across generations – is what keeps a people bound together, even when the story feels insecure, unfinished or contested.

Jewish life has long survived moments like the one we are in, not by resolving its tensions, but by refusing to walk away from them. Maybe if we can do that this year, ‘dayenu’ – it will be enough.