麻豆社

On the evening of 19th April 1943, the Nazis entered the Warsaw Ghetto, to begin the process of liquidating it and deporting the inhabitants to their deaths. But this was no ordinary evening. It was the first night of Passover, which will be celebrated throughout the Jewish world tonight.

Survivor, Tuvia Borzykowski, described the incongruity of their Passover meal, 鈥淭he Rabbi鈥檚 reading was punctuated by explosions and the rattling of machine-guns. The faces of the family around the table were lit by the red light from the burning buildings nearby.鈥�

Astonishingly, they were able to retell the millennia-old story of the Israelites鈥� exodus from Egyptian slavery, just as they had on every previous Passover.

Every year, for centuries, at the Passover feast, Jews all over the world have declared: 鈥淚n every generation, an enemy rises to try and destroy us, but God saves us from their hands.鈥�

Yet, there is something about the Passover experience, which recalls deep suffering followed by miraculous redemption, that brings comfort and strength.

Psychologists, Marshall Duke and Robin Fivush of the Family Narratives Lab at Emory University in Atlanta Georgia, have shown how the most confident and resilient young people tend to be those who have a strong sense of their 鈥榠ntergenerational self鈥� 鈥� an understanding that they are part of a family story which is far broader than just themselves. It is particularly beneficial if young people are exposed to what they call an 鈥榦scillating family narrative鈥�, appreciating that there have been times when their forebears faced adversity and times when they flourished. Such knowledge gives them the capacity to deal better with adversity in their own lives.

This is the central theme of Passover, as described in the book of Exodus, 鈥淩emember this day on which you went free from Egypt鈥� teach it to your children.鈥� This most widely observed of all Jewish rituals recalls the vicissitudes of the past, which fortify the next generation with the resilience to contend with the present and strive for a brighter future. This is one of the essential ingredients that has guaranteed Jewish survival over millennia. In a word, it's 鈥榟ope鈥�.

In our increasingly polarised and vulnerable world, punctuated by so much conflict and hatred, our hope is embodied by young people who see themselves as the next link in a chain of survival that stretches back through the ages and long into the future.

As Winston Churchill once said, 鈥淭he further back you can look, the further forward you are likely to see.鈥�

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