No, William Shakespeare did not write the Haggadah. But he sure had the Jews pegged right. Shakespeare's 400-year-old depiction of the status of the Jew in this world is as accurate today as the day it was written.



Three weeks ago, my wife and I read in a leading English language daily newspaper that the movie The Merchant of Venice was playing at 5:30pm at a Jerusalem theater. So, we chased down there, only to be told, "Not only is The Merchant of Venice not playing today at 5:30, but we don't have that movie here at all." Ah, life in the Holy Land. But just last week, I was on an airplane to New York and the fellow in the next seat was watching The Merchant of Venice. So I joined him.



When it was over, I remarked: "Well, nothing's changed." My fellow traveler asked what I meant, and I explained: "Here was a Jew who, like many of his co-religionists, was forced into the risky money-lending business. And he had a valid IOU - albeit with a monstrous surety, a pound of the lender's flesh should he default - but it was a valid loan. And what happens in the end? The Goyisher court threatens to confiscate all his property, but finally satisfies itself with half. And the Jew, begging on his knees, should consider himself lucky, because instead of forfeiting his life for threatening the blood of a Christian, the court will satisfy itself with Shylock becoming a Christian. Nothing's changed in the Jew's status in this world."



My friend argued, "That's not true. We have a state, an army, a free Jewish economy, etc."



"True," I answered, "but at this very moment our prime minister is being dictated to by the leading Goyisher power in the world, being told to relinquish our Heritage, which we had regained at the cost of Jewish blood, in a fair fight initiated by our Arab enemies in 1967. And despite valid claims to a Gush Katif that even the Arabs didn't want in the 1970s, considering it cursed ground, we now are told to abandon a paradise built by our own hands from nothing but sand, and to turn it over to our implacable enemies. And to boot, we are told that we are not build anywhere in the West Bank. And barely a whimper of protest is heard from our prime minister."



I mention all this now because we stand before Pesach, when we read the Haggadah. The main section of the Haggadah, the "Magid", is taken from the sentences in Devarim (Deutoronomy 25,6) dealing with the first fruits, the Bikurim. Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Kook explains that by having farmers bring their produce to Jerusalem, our largest and capital city, and by mandating that the city-dwellers go out and extend a lavish greeting to the country bumpkins, the Almighty was ensuring mutual appreciation and unity among the people. It would therefore have been unthinkable for the city-folk of Temple times to have treacherously jettisoned the Gush Katif Jews of those days to feed a voracious, attacking enemy, as is occurring in our time.



Shylock (Act III, scene 1), at least, showed a healthy reaction to the world's enmity: "He hath disgraced me; laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned at my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies - and what's his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions?"



The reaction of my fellow air-traveler was that Israeli behavior can't be helped, as we have too much dependence on the United States to say "no" to Disengagement: "How can we say no to the country that sells us so much armament, and does so much business with Israelis, including myself)?"



After the first Redemption, that from Egypt, our ancestors died out in the desert because of a similar attitude. "Avadim hayinu," says the Haggadah, which says it all. We were, and are, slaves, with a slave's mentality. As the spies said, revealing their inferiority complex: when we saw the Goyim, they were as giants, and we were in our own eyes as grasshoppers (Bamidbar 13,33).



One can only hope that the words of the Haggadah come true soon, in our time: "Hashata avdei" - today we are slaves, next year, may we be free men. "L'shana haba'ah biYerushalayim ha'bnuya."