Four questions for Pesach this year

This year, many Jews will arrive at the seder table carrying a contradictory mixture of emotions: grief and gratitude, solidarity and alienation, pride and shame, fear and defiance. For some, Jewishness has become more visceral – something to hold tighter in a world that feels unsafe. For others, Jewishness has become more morally complicated – something harder to inhabit when Israel’s conduct in war is experienced, or perceived, as violating the ethical core they associate with Judaism.

And for many, both of these are true at the same time.

That combination raises serious questions about the future of Jewish communal life. What will deepen Jewish identity at a moment like this? What reliably helps people to live Jewishly with meaning, agency, belonging and enough moral clarity to stay in the conversation.

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At JPR, we recently explored this ‘what works?’ question to support the JLC’s ‘Forge the Future’ programme, using data from our 2022 National Jewish Identity Survey to examine which childhood and early‑adulthood experiences are associated with stronger Jewish identity outcomes later in life. The findings, unfortunately, offer no neat recipe. There are no silver bullets, no shortcuts, and no single programme or institution that dramatically reshapes long‑term Jewish identity trajectories. But the Jewishness we cultivate in our homes matters deeply – in fact, statistically, the home is found to be more significant than schools, summer camps, Israel programmes and anything else.

And that may be the most Pesach‑friendly conclusion of all. Because the seder is not a one‑off intervention. It is part of an ecosystem – the annual re-enactment of a story, embedded in the home, sustained through relationships, and renewed through questions. It does not ‘solve’ Jewish identity in one night. It keeps Jewish identity alive by providing a structure in which it can be rehearsed, argued with, personalised and passed on.

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So, if we focus on the key identity questions Jews are carrying into Pesach this year, the seder itself offers a way to engage with them: not by offering simple answers, but as a home-based model for how Jewish identity has long been held together through pressure and disagreement. So, with that in mind, here are four questions worth considering.

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.

Dr Jonathan Boyd is the executive director of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR)