At the Passover Seder there’s a traditional
prayer which begins with the words, “Pour out Thy wrath upon the nations who do
not know You and upon the regimes which do not call out to Your name. For they
have consumed [the descendants of] Jacob...”
In recent times there are people who
express feelings that this prayer is anachronistic and not properly aligned
with progressive humanistic values. However, I think they innocently
misunderstand.
The prayer is not talking about “people” at
all. A proper reading of the Hebrew demonstrates that it's strictly addressing
"political entities". Nations and regimes are “political entities” in
the way modern corporations are “legal entities”. Yes, people play roles in
corporations, but, they aren't the corporations themselves. The same can be
said for nations and regimes.
I don't think that there's a single
progressive liberal who would not want to see “political entities”, with
terrifying human rights records, dissolve away instantly; hopefully in peace.
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