The First Seder Was a Wartime Meal

Four armed guards and a police officer stood outside a synagogue in Dunwoody on Sunday night. Inside, an Iranian-American comedian was killing — Tehran Von Ghasri, the son of an Iranian Jewish father and an African American mother, riffing in English (and a touch of Farsi) to a room that couldn't stop laughing for long. A Haitian-American hip-hop producer who found his way to Judaism performed music that split the difference between gritty and sacred. A Persian Jewish vocalist sang in languages most of the audience didn't speak, and it didn't matter. A Holocaust survivor — 90-something, still sharp, reportedly a fantastic dancer — told his story with the economy of someone who has told it many times and means it every time.

The event was called Bridges of Hope, organized by the Atlanta Israel Coalition. Due to security considerations, we could only publicize it through certain channels. For a Sunday night before Pesach, the turnout was remarkable. People came anyway.

They came knowing there would be armed guards at the door and that the venue address wasn't posted publicly. They came because a room full of people from different worlds choosing to sit together — Persian, Haitian, Moroccan, Indian, Israeli, American — is exactly the kind of thing you show up for when the news gives you every reason to stay home.

I keep thinking about those guards at the door. Not because they were unusual — Jewish events in 2026 require security the way they require chairs — but because of what was happening on the other side of the wall they were guarding. Laughter. Music in multiple languages. A room full of strangers becoming less strange to each other. The guards stood watch so the joy could happen. That's an old arrangement. Older than Dunwoody (regardless of what Tehran thinks of that city name).

The Torah describes the very first Pesach meal — the one eaten in Egypt, the night before everything changed — with a detail that lands differently this year:

וְכָ֘כָה֮ תֹּאכְל֣וּ אֹתוֹ֒ מׇתְנֵיכֶ֣ם חֲגֻרִ֔ים נַֽעֲלֵיכֶם֙ בְּרַגְלֵיכֶ֔ם וּמַקֶּלְכֶ֖ם בְּיֶדְכֶ֑ם וַאֲכַלְתֶּ֤ם אֹתוֹ֙ בְּחִפָּז֔וֹן פֶּ֥סַח ה֖וּא לַיהֹוָֽה׃

This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly: it is a passover offering to GOD.

— Shemot 12:11

Sandals on. Staff in hand. Ready to move. The first seder was not a relaxed evening. It was a meal eaten in danger, by people who did not yet know if the promise would hold. They roasted the lamb and ate it standing up, dressed to flee, in a country that had enslaved them for generations.

That's the origin story. Freedom didn't begin in safety. It began in a room where the threat was real and the table was set anyway.

A few verses later, the Torah names the night:

לֵ֣יל שִׁמֻּרִ֥ים הוּא֙ לַֽיהֹוָ֔ה לְהוֹצִיאָ֖ם מֵאֶ֣רֶץ מִצְרָ֑יִם הֽוּא־הַלַּ֤יְלָה הַזֶּה֙ לַֽיהֹוָ֔ה שִׁמֻּרִ֛ים לְכׇל־בְּנֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל לְדֹרֹתָֽם׃ {פ}

That was for GOD a night of vigil to bring them out of the land of Egypt; that same night is GOD’s, one of vigil for all the children of Israel throughout the ages.

— Shemot 12:42

Leil shimurim. A night of watching. The Hebrew root is shin-mem-resh — to guard, to keep, to watch over. The same root as shomer, the word for a guard.

On that first Pesach night, God kept the vigil. The watching was mutual: the Israelites watched for the signal to leave, and God watched over them while they waited.

Tonight, Jews will search their homes for chametz — the leaven we clear out before Pesach — and some of those Jews, the ones in Israel, will do it between missile sirens. Families in the north are planning seders around which bomb shelter can fit the most chairs. A website called IsraelForPesach.com launched this week to match stranded tourists, gap-year students, and new olim with Israeli families willing to open their doors — strangers inviting strangers to their tables because nobody should sit alone on the night we retell the story of leaving together.

And on Sunday — the same day the Atlanta Israel Coalition filled a sanctuary in Dunwoody with music, laughs, and remembrances — a group of young survivors of the Nova music festival massacre gathered around long tables to bake matzot. The initiative, led by Kesher Yehudi, brought together people who lived through October 7 for a Pesach preparation that was equal parts halachic practice and collective act of defiance. They attended a shiur on the laws of Pesach. They mixed flour and water and watched the clock — eighteen minutes, not a second more. Some of them still carry visible scars. One survivor, Shaked, told Israel National News: the matzot they baked with their own hands, following every halachic detail, gave the mitzvah a meaning it hadn't carried before. She called it "the real victory."

The real victory. Not a military victory. Not a political outcome. Hands in dough, eighteen minutes on the clock, scars visible, and the matzah comes out kosher.

That is the image I want to carry into tomorrow night.

The Haggadah famously says b'chol dor vador — in every generation, a person is obligated to see themselves as though they personally went out of Egypt. Most years, that line requires imagination. This year, it requires less.

The Israelites ate their first Pesach meal in haste, dressed to move, in a country that wanted them dead. They set the table anyway. The matzah — lechem oni, the bread of affliction, but also the bread of faith — was the food you make when you don't have time to wait for the dough to rise. It is the bread of people in a hurry to be free.

Tonight we'll search for chametz in our kitchens with a candle and a feather and a wooden spoon — the same odd little ritual Jews have performed on this night for centuries. Tomorrow evening, Modi and I will sit down to our rabbi's seder table — we know his wife will be there, and one of the regulars from shul, a lovely woman who never misses a Shabbat morning, and beyond that we're not sure who else. Second night, we'll be at Cheryl's — the woman behind both the Kosher Duck Revolution and the Atlanta Israel Coalition, which means the conversation will be loud. Somewhere in Israel, a family will host a stranger they met through a website three days ago. Somewhere in the south, Nova survivors will break their own hand-baked matzot over a seder plate. Somewhere in the north, a family will eat in a bomb shelter and call it the table.

The guards are at the door. The table is set. The night of watching has begun.

Chag Pesach sameach.

— Uriel ben Avraham