A highlight of the Seder is always the children asking, “Why is this night different?”
In South Dakota, we are blessed that children in Gan have spent several weeks preparing for Passover, and amidst a packed community Seder with over 100 souls, there will be seventeen children proudly singing the Mah Nishtanah this evening.
Education is crucial, especially at a time like this. That's why Chabad places such a strong emphasis on education. We should never be afraid to learn, to ask, and to explore. In the words of the Sages, “A bashful person cannot learn, neither can a short-tempered teach.”
Last year at the Seder, after we sang Vehi Sheamda and recalled how “in each generation they rise to destroy us, but You save us,” someone asked me why it was still necessary to include that passage in the Seder service. In years gone by, this made sense, but now in the 2020s, when the world was more humane and enlightened, it seemed outdated and irrelevant.
Unfortunately, this year we will be reciting this passage with greater understanding, but so too will the final words and crescendo of the Haggadah, “Next year in Jerusalem,” be said with greater fervor and more relevance than ever.
Passover recalls how G-d took us out of Egypt and began the journey leading us to the Holy Land of Israel. It is G-d who created the universe and decided to gift the land to us. Nothing can ever change that. That's why this has been on the lips and in the hearts of all Jewish people ever since. As our sages tell us, in each generation, we are obligated to consider ourselves as if we personally left Egypt.
We can never forget our beginning and how grateful we are to Hashem for making us a free people; to be His people. That is what the Seder service is about. Not grievances at those who wronged us. That won’t get us anywhere. But recognizing the great blessings and privileges we as Jews have received, and continue to receive, despite hardships we encounter along the way.
This is a timely and reassuring message, especially when we look around and see what is going on in the world around us. We must remember that just as it was during the Exodus of Egypt that G-d Himself redeemed us from subjugation to freedom – '”I and not an angel, I and not a messenger, I, and none other than I” – so too, we will merit in our times, that G-d will be with us to take us out of our personal exiles, and ultimately redeem us all from exile into redemption with the coming of Moshiach.
May you be blessed with a joyful Pesach, and merit the true meaning and celebration of “a time of freedom” – free from all worries, concerns and personal limitations, and with good health, happiness and prosperity. 
Next year in Jerusalem!

I recently participated in the signing of a bill that will make it easier for South Dakota law enforcement to hold antisemites accountable. Though anyone can stand in the street and say whatever they’d like, HB1076 makes it easier to protect Jews in our state from hateful conduct. 
If sometime in the future, a Jewish child in South Dakota will be safer and more protected, it will be because of this bill. That is why I wholeheartedly supported it and am grateful to the South Dakota legislature for their overwhelming and bipartisan support, and to Governor Noem for making it a top priority this session.
Will it destroy the haters and completely eradicate antisemitism? Unfortunately not. 
So what, if anything, can be done to stop Jew hatred? Some argue we should be less visible and hide our mezuzahs, megillas and menorahs. Others suggest we need to be less supportive of our brothers and sisters in Israel and that Israel should defend itself less, to pacify and win over the rest of the world. The news and rhetoric today can be frustrating and isolating. 
During the time of the Purim miracle Jews were threatened with genocide by the evil Haman. It all changed when Mordechai met a group of children and asked them what they learned that day, and they began reciting verses of Torah to him.
It was at that moment that Mordechai knew the Jewish people would be okay. When there is proper Jewish education, there are knowledgeable Jews. When there are knowledgeable Jews, there are proud Jews, and where there are proud Jews there is a Jewish future. Incidentally, it was at that moment that Haman also knew that, try as he might, he would not succeed in getting rid of the Jews. 
When it comes to finding a career and making a living, we understand this idea well; if we want our children to succeed we must provide them with an education. We know this for their lifestyle and hobbies too. A parent recently told me they want their child to show an interest in soccer. So they started showing soccer games and championships on their TV screen at home and hope will build an interest in the child to sign up for the neighborhood soccer team. 
The same applies to Jewish identity and lifestyle. When a child can hold a siddur the right way up and read the Torah in its original Hebrew, they will be passionate as a teen and adult to attend services and participate in Torah classes. If they introduce themselves to their college friends as a proud Jew, it will only happen if they've been educated as one.
This is also our best weapon against antisemitism, as we say in the Passover Haggadah “In every generation they rise up to destroy us, but the Torah that has stood by our ancestors and for us, and You (G-d) save us from them.” 
Yes, we must always do what we can to ensure hateful perpetrators are held accountable, but as individual Jews, we can’t forget that the most important thing is to focus on and invest in Jewish education. Imagine what the Jewish community would look like if every dollar spent on educating the world about antisemitism was spent instead on educating Jews about Judaism; Jewish education.
Think about the astonishing fact that you and I are here today as  Jews continuing our 3,500 year old heritage and tradition. Answer these questions to yourself Who are we? What in fact is our heritage and tradition? What makes us Jewish? The “Chosen People”? What is our purpose here on earth? What is our privilege and responsibility as a Jew in 2024?
When we have a good sense of our Jewish identity, we may not be able to change the haters, but we will accomplish something far greater: We will have changed ourselves in ways that the antisemite will no longer be able to instill fear in us as they did before. When we are fully confident and proud of who we are, much of the antisemitism won’t matter anymore.
And if there is indeed any way to change how others look at Jews, this itself might be the best approach after all. In the words of the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, "Non​-​Jews respect ​Jews who respect ​Judaism."

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One of the most fascinating parts of the Seder is the topic of "The Four Sons;" the wise, the wicked, the simple, and the one who is completely apathetic. 

Several days before Passover in 1957, the Rebbe wrote a letter that in many ways reframed the core purpose of the Seder ever since: To find and invite “The Fifth Son” to the Seder: any Jew who “is conspicuous by his or her absence from the Seder service.”

The Rebbe explained that while each of the “four sons” differ from each other in their reactions to the Seder, they all have one thing in common: they are all present at the Seder. In the Rebbe’s words “even the so-called ‘wicked’ son is there, taking an active, though rebellious, interest in what is going on in Jewish life around him.” 

But unfortunately, the Rebbe added, there is also another kind of child: “the one who isn’t at the Seder.” This is our Jewish sister or brother who has no interest in Torah and mitzvahs, or who may not even be aware of the Seder altogether.

“This presents a grave challenge, which should command our attention long before Passover and the Seder night. For no Jewish child should be forgotten and given up. We must make every effort to save also that 'lost' child, and bring the absentee to the Seder table. Determined to do so, and driven by a deep sense of compassion and responsibility, we need have no fear of failure.”

Putting these words in context, written only a few years after the Holocaust, we learn something not only about our responsibility to each other, but we are also empowered with the best tools available to ensure a vibrant, active and enthusiastic Jewish continuity. Not through crying about the past, but by living the present and actively forming the future. 
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Today we have the moral responsibility to our people, to see to it that every Jew should celebrate Passover and attend a Seder in a meaningful, kosher, and dignified way. Every individual deserves to experience the freedoms, traditions and rituals that have been part of our story for millennia.

Pesach is just around the corner and we are delighted to once again be able to share a gift of matzah with every Jewish home across South Dakota. 
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Like those our ancestors ate during their Exodus from Egypt, these are handmade, baked with only flour and water, all within eighteen minutes, ensuring that the dough has no time to rise.
The Zohar teaches that matzah is “bread of faith and healing.” The spiritual benefits of having matzah on Passover are immeasurable. As you connect with our heritage this holiday, know that you are an integral part of the Jewish story. Your Passover and your mitzvah is so meaningful and important for the past, present, and future of Judaism and our holy traditions.
Each year as I bring matzah to friends around the state, I am encouraged and inspired by the stories you share with me. It is an absolute honor and privilege that Mussie and I have, to be part of such a wonderful community and to be able to share this gift with you.

Chabad is here because of you, and for you. For every Jew in South Dakota, equally. Chabad is not here “for the Orthodox” alone. In fact, as the Rebbe taught, at Chabad we do not use terms like “Reform,” “Conservative,” “Orthodox” or “Unaffiliated.” To us, these are artificial and imagined terms with no bearing on who you are and how Chabad sees you as a Jew.

From our perspective it is very simple; You are a Jew. So you belong!
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At Chabad you will always be welcomed unconditionally, and embraced with open arms. There will always be a seat for you at the table - including the Seder table!

Pesach is just around the corner and we are delighted to once again be able to share a gift of matzah with every Jewish home across South Dakota. 
Like those our ancestors ate during their Exodus from Egypt, these are handmade, baked with only flour and water, all within eighteen minutes, ensuring that the dough has no time to rise.
The Zohar teaches that matzah is “bread of faith and healing.” The spiritual benefits of having matzah on Passover are immeasurable. As you connect with our heritage this holiday, know that you are an integral part of the Jewish story. Your Passover and your mitzvah is so meaningful and important for the past, present, and future of Judaism and our holy traditions.
Each year as I bring matzah to friends around the state, I am encouraged and inspired by the stories you share with me. It is an absolute honor and privilege that Mussie and I have, to be part of such a wonderful community and to be able to share this gift with you.
Chabad is here because of you, and for you. For every Jew in South Dakota, equally. Chabad is not here “for the Orthodox” alone. In fact, as the Rebbe taught, at Chabad we do not use terms like “Reform,” “Conservative,” “Orthodox” or “Unaffiliated.” To us, these are artificial and imagined terms with no bearing on who you are and how Chabad sees you as a Jew.
From our perspective it is very simple; You are a Jew. So you belong!
At Chabad you will always be welcomed unconditionally, and embraced with open arms. There will always be a seat for you at the table - including the Seder table!

Each year, Chabad of South Dakota distributes hundreds of lbs. of matzah to the local Jewish community. Usually, we like to purchase these matzahs from a bakery in Israel. It's the eternal Jewish homeland, and the holy place we pray for every day. But this year, I will be giving every Jewish home in SD matzah. . . that was baked in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine.
Ukraine is home to a large Jewish population, by some estimates as many as 400,000 Jewish people. Today they are facing unprecedented war, hunger and a refugee crisis. And if the Midwest is known as America's breadbasket, Ukraine is Europe's breadbasket. So I was not surprised to learn that Ukraine also exports some fine matzah.
There is also very significant historic and spiritual relevance to matzah from Dnipropetrovsk. The Rebbe's father, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Schneerson (1878 – 1944), was the chief rabbi there for over thirty years. As the leader of the community, he unapologetically stood up to the communist regimes, and risked his life to ensure that even under their oppression the matzah baked in Ukraine would be kosher to the highest standard. His ironclad commitment to his people and faith, led to his persecution and arrest at the hands of the KGB. He was imprisoned, tortured and interrogated and eventually died in harsh circumstances while in Soviet exile. Years later the KGB would apologize.
This year, as we celebrate our freedom, and the blessings we are fortunate to have living in America, let us remember our brothers and sisters in Ukraine who baked these matzahs. Let us hope and pray that they too, will be able to enjoy their matzah in true freedom.
Maybe this will also stand as a testament to the dedication and ultimate self-sacrifice of the Rebbe's father, and the original Ukrainian matzah.

Last year, at the conclusion of the Passover festival I turned on my phone and saw I had a voicemail from Ross Lerner.  He lives in a town some 160 miles away from Sioux Falls with a population of about 3000. He is the only known Jew in the town.  In his voicemail, he thanked me for the matzah gift, that we proudly deliver or ship to every Jewish home in South Dakota.
That every Jew be able to celebrate Passover, and have matzah for the holiday, was something very important to the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson. He distributed matzah himself, sending to Jews in under-served communities like those in the former Soviet Union and Morocco, or a lonely Jew in Tyler, Texas, or Dakar, Senegal, and always encouraged rabbis and communal leaders around the world to ensure everyone in their communities had as well.
Each of the boxes we gave last year contained 3 matzahs, the prescribed portion for a traditional Seder. The Kabalistic masters teach how matzah is the “bread of faith” that strengthens our faith in G-d and reminds us of His protection at our Exodus from Egypt. Many have told me how this is especially meaningful for them. Without it, there are simply no options for matzah in South Dakota.  It is not something you can just pick up at a local Hy Vee or Costco.  Authentic kosher matzah can also be pricey, sometimes costing $30 per lbs, before shipping.
But Ross didn’t just call to share his gratitude. In a choked voice he said that to his surprise, the box only contained 3 matzahs. “Rabbi, how could you let me down like that!?” And he was right.  A person really needs 6 matzahs, 3 for each Seder on both nights of the festival.  Ross went on to say that he did some research and discovered that matzah is made of only plain flour and water - just like our ancestors had when they left Egypt - and that it must all be baked within 18 minutes. Then he continued, and I will never forget what he said next  “I realized I have flour, and I have water. So I cleared out my oven and made matza so I can have it for the second Seder.”
That’s it.  That’s the story. 
Somewhat dumbfounded and awestruck, I immediately called him and told him how precious his matzahs must be in the eyes of G-d.  In other places where Jewish amenities are abundant, some might spend weeks deciding on their preferred matzah vendor, and pay a premium for the finest matzah baker.  But it was his homemade matzahs that actually carried with them the tears, love, joy and feelings of our beautiful tradition. If only we could all eat our matzah with the same sincerity and fervor.
Several months later I repeated this story to Barbara & Larry Ellberger, and their children Aliza & Ruven, and Eytan and Shai, friends from New Jersey who generously helped sponsor the matzah for the South Dakota Jewish community for several years. They were so moved by this that they immediately decided to increase their contribution to ensure that every Jew in South Dakota can have enough matzahs for two Seders.  
This is the Jewish spirit. This is the meaning of “mitzvah goreres mitzvah,” one good thing leads to another, and the reward for the Mitzvah is the Mitzvah itself.
So this year, as we celebrate Passover, let us take a bite of the bread of faith, with true faith and determination.  Let us be proud of our heritage and traditions. Proud of the beauty of our holy Torah and its commandments, and let us live them better on a daily basis.  L’shana Haba’ah B’Yerushalayim! 

Passover begins this evening. And we will celebrate it for the 3332nd time. But this year will be different.
For the first time in our lives my wife and I will be having a Seder alone just with our daughters, without the company of other friends or family. And we are sure you are also having your Seder on your own.
But the truth is, we are not alone. None of us are ever alone. We are always in the presence of Almighty G-d and connected with each other through our shared history, faith and humanity.
So as we ask the four questions this evening, let us also ask our Father in Heaven why He made this night different from all others, and beg Him to bring an end to this global pandemic, healing all those suffering, and protection to all the wonderful doctors and nurses standing on the front line.
The Seders this Passover will be remarkably similar to the first Passover Seder our ancestors had on the eve of their Exodus from Egypt, when they were instructed to remain in their homes, and each have a Seder on their own. Just as G-d delivered His people then, let us pray that He brings deliverance to all people this Passover season.
Mussie joins me in wishing you and your family a Kosher and Happy Passover, with good health, peace and happiness, and may we all merit the true meaning and celebration of Passover, also known as “a time of freedom” – free from all worries, concerns and personal limitations.

The months of Adar and Nissan are packed with Jewish holidays and history. At Chabad
we strive to ensure that every member of the Jewish community has an opportunity to
participate and feel welcome experiencing our sacred heritage. We look forward to inviting you to our Purim and Passover celebrations.

On Purim we commemorate the overturning of the plot by the wicked King Ahasuerus and his viceroy Hamman to annihilate us. We celebrate by reading Esther’s Megillah, hosting a festive dinner, sharing gifts of food with friends and giving charity to the poor. This year we invite you to join us for a “Purim in the Shtetl ‘’ themed celebration, featuring our own Klezmer band. 

And just four weeks later we will be celebrating Passover. In Jewish homes across the country and around the world, families and friends will gather around the Seder table, the same way we have been doing it for more than 3,500 years since our Exodus from Egypt. It was at that very moment when we became an essentially and completely free people,  with our only subservience being to G-d Himself. Today in America, we are free citizens, able to live as proud Jews. But perhaps we may be confined by our personal Egypts, those barriers, often artificial, that stand between us and our indulging in Jewish experiences. What better way to celebrate this Passover, than by experiencing true Jewish
freedom and committing to do another good mitzvah deed, strengthening the link in our chain of Jewish tradition and ensuring its continuity for future generations.

​The work that we do in South Dakota mirrors what Chabad does in thousands of other centers across America and in another 100+ countries. Just a few weeks ago, world Jewry marked 70 years since the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson assumed to the leadership of the Chabad movement on the 10th of Shevat, 1950.

At the core of his teachings, is the idea that this world is truly G-ds home, and each human being here on earth is personally tasked with making it feel so. In the ensuing seven decades, the Rebbe’s one time radical and urgent message of meaning and moral purpose has become increasingly mainstream.

Today there is not a Jewish community in the world that has not been positively impacted by the Rebbe’s teachings. Even now during the Coronavirus, the only Rabbi still in China, faithfully serving the needs of the local community, Rabbi Sholom Greenberg who together with his wife and children run Chabad in Shanghai.

So as we sit at our Seder tables this year and read the passage of Rabbi Elazar Ben Azarya “I am like 70 years old” let us infuse our life and Jewish observance with the vibrance and meaning the Rebbe began teaching us seventy years ago, allowing us each to fully live our own personal Exodus and even experience a taste of the future redemption.