(RNS) — This is the question that begins the Passover seder: “Why is this night different from all other nights?”
Oh, it was different alright.
The matzah crumbs were still on the dining room table, and the wine-stained Haggadot were stacked in the corner when an arsonist attacked the governor’s mansion in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, endangering the lives of Gov. Josh Shapiro and his family. Luckily, no one was injured, though there was extensive damage to the building.
It was only a few hours after the Israelites would have left Egypt.
The suspect, Cody Balmer, 38, is being held on charges of attempted murder, aggravated arson, terrorism and other charges in connection with the fire. He said he was angry with the Pennsylvania governor and would have beaten him with a hammer if confronted, according to an affidavit state police filed Monday.
At the moment, we do not know the precise motivations of the suspect. But, we can guess, and our guesses would be grimly reasonable.
Why? There is a long and ignoble history of antisemites scheduling their attacks on or around Jewish holidays. Some examples:
- Passover eve: On April 19, 1943, in Poland, the Germans entered the Warsaw Ghetto to deport survivors inside, beginning the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.
- Rosh Hashanah: On Sept. 29, 1943, in Denmark, the chief rabbi, Marcus Melchior, canceled religious services instead of welcoming the new year in the usual way. A diplomat had tipped him off that the Nazis planned to round up Jews during the holiday. He urged people to hide or flee.
- Yom Kippur: On Sept. 26, 1941, German soldiers occupied Kyiv, Ukraine. From Sept. 29 to Sept. 30, the eve of Yom Kippur, 33,771 Jews — mostly women, children and elderly people — were murdered.
- Also, on Yom Kippur: On Oct. 1, 1941, German soldiers began aktionen, or actions against the Jews, in the Vilna Ghetto, ultimately resulting in its liquidation.
- Again, on Yom Kippur: On Oct. 6, 1973, a coalition of Arab countries attacked Israel in what would become the Yom Kippur War.
- Simchat Torah: The second aktion against the Vilna Ghetto, in which 3,000 Jews were taken to the Ponary Forest in October 1941. In the third aktion that same month, about 2,500 Jews were taken to the Ponary Forest and murdered.
- Also, on Simchat Torah: The Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel.
- Purim: On March 3, 1942, Nazis hanged 10 Jews in Zduńska Wola, Poland, in revenge for the killing of the 10 sons of Haman in the story of Esther.
- On Shabbat: There must be countless incidents, but most infamous was the Oct. 27, 2018, attack on the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, which resulted in the murder of 11 Jews and the wounding of six others. It was the deadliest attack on a Jewish community in American history.
I go through this litany of Jewish pain for several reasons. The first is to remind you of the power of Jewish memory. Novelist Jonathan Safran Foer put it this way in “Everything Is Illuminated”:
“Jews have six senses. Touch, taste, sight, smell, hearing … memory. … For Jews memory is no less primary than the prick of a pin, or its silver glimmer, or the taste of the blood it pulls from the finger. The Jew is pricked by a pin and remembers other pins. It is only by tracing the pinprick back to other pinpricks – when his mother tried to fix his sleeve while his arm was still in it, when his grandfather’s fingers fell asleep from stroking his great-grandfather’s damp forehead, when Abraham tested the knife point to be sure Isaac would feel no pain – that the Jew is able to know why it hurts. When a Jew encounters a pin, he asks: What does it remember like?”
Because of that sixth sense — memory — Jews remember the prick of the pin. The arson attack was at the home of one of the most prominent Jewish politicians in the United States the night after the first seder. Shapiro is proudly and unabashedly Jewish. His name had been mentioned as a possible Democratic vice presidential candidate.
Every Jew felt that pin prick.
Second, for Jews, time has a way of imploding and shrinking into itself. The attack on Shapiro became every other attack on the Jews during a festival.
Third, we Jews know that our enemies traditionally use Jewish holidays as opportunities for attack — not only to exploit our weakness on days when we would presumably be at worship, but also as a way to permanently damage the sanctity of those days.
That is why Balmer’s exact motive does not matter. He did it on Passover. Coincidence or not, as with humor, timing is everything.
Shapiro said Sunday (April 13) after the incident, “When we were in the state dining room last night, we told the story of Passover” and the exodus of the Jews from slavery in Egypt to freedom. “I refuse to be trapped by the bondage that someone attempts to put on me by attacking us as they did here last night. I refuse to let anyone who had evil intentions like that stop me from doing the work that I love.”
He also said: “If he was trying to terrorize our family, our friends, the Jewish community who joined us for a Passover seder in that room last night, hear me on this: we celebrated our faith last night proudly, and in a few hours, we will celebrate our second seder of Passover, again proudly. No one will deter me or my family or any Pennsylvanian from celebrating their faith openly and proudly.”
I echo what many of my fellow Jews are saying. We are proud of our people, proud of our faith, proud of our traditions, proud of our history, and yes, I am singularly proud of Gov. Josh Shapiro.
And finally, I call upon all people of faith to condemn what happened. Because, yes, this was an attack on Shapiro and his family, on the extended family of the Jewish people and on the Jewish religion. Because of that, it was an attack on all religions.
Let us use this Passover and Holy Week to speak that sacred truth.