I pray for peace this Passover.

It is clear that the Israel response to the Hamas attack last fall has been a catastrophic failure.

Hope for the return of hostages has dwindled. Hamas military remains active.

Israel’s response has achieved none of the declared goals.

And this must be said: the Biblical disproportion of Israeli retaliation has wantonly denied yet another generation of Palestinians its basic human rights — through fury and violence.

Whether you are an anger-filled student occupying your university campus or a late-middle-aged father seething quietly with grief for a fallen ideal, it is also clear that Israel’s moral standing in the world — its very right to exist — has been soiled by its leaders’ extremism, self-serving agenda, and disastrous lack of vision.

I pray for peace this Passover.

This season always evokes memories of my brother Aaron. He died in 1972, when he was around 15 and I was five. In the world he knew, Israel was in a golden moment of its history. Born the child of trauma, it was then a beacon of hope. The 1973 war was unimaginable.

In the years that followed that conflict, kids like me sent pocket change to groups that would plant trees in Israel — in the memory of a lost family member. I wonder if that tree still grows today.

May we all find inspiration in the Passover story and its tale of suffering and redemption.

May we all find moral strength and spiritual clarity in the community bonds we celebrate as we gather for the holiday.

May we all pray for peace in the Middle East and beyond.