This Passover may be remembered as one of the most unusual Passovers in modern Jewish history. For more than 3,000 years, Jews have gathered to celebrate Passover, the story of the Exodus from Egypt, the journey from slavery to freedom, from oppression to nationhood. Few traditions in human history have been observed continuously for so long. Empires have risen and fallen, religions have spread across continents, and entire civilizations have disappeared, yet Jews still sit around the Seder table telling the same story.
But this year feels different.
This year, many Jews, especially in Israel, will move between the Seder table and safe rooms. Families will read about the plagues of Egypt while listening for sirens. We will speak about Pharaoh, oppression, and freedom while living through a war against an enemy that openly speaks about destroying the Jewish state. The overlap between ancient memory and current reality is unusually stark. It would almost be a mistake not to reflect on the parallels.
Passover is not only a story about ancient history. It is a story about power, leadership, fear, stubbornness, freedom, and the rise and fall of empires. This year, the story feels less like distant history and more like a framework through which to understand the present.
To understand this moment, Jewish tradition offers an important distinction: the difference between Egypt and Amalek – enemies of the Jewish nation.
In the Torah, we are instructed that, regarding Egypt, we are told not to despise the Egyptians because we were strangers in their land. Regarding Amalek, we are told to remember forever what Amalek did to us. The contrast is striking. Egypt enslaved the Jewish people for generations, oppressed them, and even killed their children, yet the Torah does not command eternal hatred toward Egypt. Amalek attacked once, and the memory must never be forgotten.
Jewish commentators explain that Egypt and Amalek represent two fundamentally different types of enemies. Egypt was a political enemy. Pharaoh feared that the Israelites were growing too numerous and might one day join Egypt’s enemies. His oppression came from fear, power politics, and a desire to maintain control. His actions were cruel and evil, but they were rooted in political and economic concerns. Egypt represents the political oppressor – terrible, but understandable within the logic of power and fear.
Amalek attacked Jews out of pure hatred, opportunism
Amalek represents something entirely different. Amalek attacked the Israelites after the Exodus when they were weak, tired, and traveling with families. According to Jewish tradition, Amalek attacked not out of fear or political necessity, but out of pure hatred and opportunism. Amalek becomes, in Jewish thought, the symbol of the existential enemy – the enemy who does not want to defeat you, but wants you to disappear.
This distinction has echoed throughout Jewish history. Some enemies were like Egypt – political enemies who oppressed Jews but could later be replaced, reconciled with, or forgotten. Others were seen as Amalek – enemies who sought extermination, who turned conflict into ideology, who framed Jews not as opponents but as illegitimate.
There is also a historical irony that cannot be ignored this Passover. Modern-day Iran sits on the land of ancient Persia, the same Persia where Haman, the descendant of Amalek in the Purim story, attempted to destroy the Jewish people. Today, the same region now produces one of the most dangerous threats to Jewish existence. History does not repeat itself exactly, but it often comes very close.
This framework raises an uncomfortable but unavoidable question in our own time: Is Iran behaving more like Egypt or more like Amalek?
This is not only a political question; it is a historical one. Egypt enslaved the Jews but did not seek their total extermination. Amalek attacked with the intention of destroying a people. When we listen to Iranian revolutionary rhetoric over the past decades, the language is focused on the destruction of Israel and the defeat of the West. Within that framework, Israel is not simply a rival state but an illegitimate entity.
The comparison to Pharaoh becomes even more interesting when we look at the Passover story more closely. Pharaoh is struck again and again by plagues. Each plague is devastating. Each plague should logically lead to a reassessment of policy. Yet Pharaoh continues to refuse.
Jewish commentators debate whether Pharaoh hardened his own heart or whether God hardened it, but many agree on one key point: Pharaoh became trapped by his own leadership position. He could no longer reverse course without collapsing his authority. His identity, legitimacy, and power structure were tied to refusing the Israelites’ freedom.
This idea – that leaders sometimes become prisoners of their own ideology and past decisions – is not only biblical; it is historical and modern.
Looking at the Iranian leadership today, many observers ask a similar question: after years of economic pressure, military setbacks, and international isolation, why does the leadership not change course? Why continue down a path that appears to bring destruction? Like Pharaoh after multiple plagues, regimes sometimes cannot retreat because retreat would mean admitting that the entire ideological foundation of their rule was wrong.
Meanwhile, there is another parallel that is difficult to ignore. While Israel and the United States focus their attacks primarily on military and strategic targets, Iran and its proxies have repeatedly targeted civilian areas. This recalls the description of Amalek attacking the Israelites when they were tired, weak, and vulnerable, targeting the stragglers and the defenseless rather than confronting strength directly.
What makes this moment even more significant is that this conflict is also being fought through narratives, not only on the battlefield but in the realm of strategic communication.
Pharaoh had to convince Egypt that he was still in control. The Iranian leadership must convince its people that resistance proves strength, not weakness. The United States frames the conflict as coercive diplomacy designed to force a change in behavior. Israel frames the conflict as a necessary campaign to remove an existential threat.
In the Passover story, after nine plagues, the battle is no longer about whether Egypt is being hurt. Everyone can see the damage. The battle becomes about interpretation. Pharaoh must insist that he still rules.
We may be living in a similar moment now. The question is no longer only about Iranian military capability, but about narratives, legitimacy, endurance of the public, and or the ability of leadership to change course before catastrophe forces change upon them.
And so, this Passover represents a unique historic moment. Jews will sit around Seder tables and read the story of leaving Egypt while living in a world where ancient categories – Egypt, Amalek, oppression, freedom, stubborn leaders, existential threats – suddenly feel very current again.
Passover teaches that history is not random. It teaches that empires rise and fall, that power is temporary, that freedom requires courage, and that sometimes the most important question is not who is stronger, but how the public understands the direction of history.
As Jews sit this year and say, “In every generation they rise against us, and in every generation, we survive,” the words may feel less like ritual and more like current events.
This year, Passover may feel less like we are remembering history and more like we are living inside it. Perhaps the deepest lesson of the holiday is: empires rise and fall, power is temporary, but the importance of freedom continues. While divinely insured, Freedom is never free, and the story of Passover was never only about the past. It was always about the present.