Rabbi Alona Lisitza, an Israeli Reform Rabbi, offers the following prayer to be offered as we break the middle matzah:
“This year our heart is also divided, half of it here, around the table, is filled with joy and great gratitude for the family and our togetherness, for our freedom, for our full cups, for all the goodness with which we have been blessed.
And the other half is in Gaza, with our captives, who have neither freedom nor redemption nor do they have “Seder” (order) in their lives.
At the same time, the heart is found in many places around Israel, in the houses where the families of the captives are and empty places around their tables.
Our heart is broken into pieces.
This pain is sharp, and piercing, and wears away in our daily routine.
This year we will give this pain and this brokenness a place in our Seder.”*

A Prayer for the Seder by Rabbi Naomi Levy
God, our Strength and Protection, we pray for the State of Israel in this devastating time of war, shock and grief. Our hearts are breaking, God. We pray for the lives of the innocent civilians who have been heartlessly kidnapped by Hamas, bring them home, watch over them, God. We pray for the lives of the soldiers who have been taken captive, we pray for their safe return, shelter them, God. We pray for the souls of the innocent victims who were brutally slaughtered. Send comfort and strength, God, to the grieving. Send healing to the injured, and strength and wisdom to their doctors and nurses.
We pray for all our brothers and sisters in Israel in this time of tragedy and crisis.
Watch over Israel, God, spread Your shelter of peace over the land and over all our brothers and sisters who live there. Shine Your light upon Israel’s leaders, officers and advisers, help them to overcome all divisiveness and to act with clarity and determination. Protect the men and women who defend Israel, let them be safe and may they be victorious over the Hamas terrorists who attacked our people. Watch over them, God. Hear their prayers. Bring peace, God. Let it rain down from the heavens like a mighty storm. Let it wash away all hatred and bloodshed. Peace, God, please, God.
God of the brokenhearted, God of the living, God of the dead, gather the souls of the victims into Your eternal shelter. Let them find peace in Your presence, God. Their lives have ended, but their lights can never be extinguished. May they shine on us always and illuminate our way.
Amen.

One Must See Oneself Chen Artzi Saror English Translation: Rabbi Karen Reiss Medwed, PhD adapted by Rabbi Robert Scheinberg, PhD
One must see oneself as one who came out of Be’eri. Out of K’far Aza. Out of S’derot. Out of Ofakim. Remember and do not forget until the final day. Not to seed more fear: but to ready our hope. Elderly will again sit on the lawns of Be’eri, The streets of S’derot will fill with children playing. Torched houses will be painted over, Plowed fields will be furrowed and tomatoes will be picked. The existential threat will be removed. This is not a prophecy of consolation THIS is our next agenda

Speak Out Rabbi Avi Orlow adapted from Martin Niemöller
First they came for the Zionists, and I did not speak out—because being anti-Zionist is not Antisemitic.
Then they killed civilians and took hostages, and I did not speak out- because Israelis are colonialists.
Then they raped Jewish women, and I did not speak out- because I did not believe the victims or the bodycams.
Then they came for the Jews in traditional attire, and I did not speak out—because they chose to set themselves apart.
Then they came for the Jews who dress like me, and I did not speak out—because they are white and are excluded from our DEI policy.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
The west is next

Hatred is Easy by Rachel Goldberg, mother of hostage
So here I live. In a different universe than all of you. You are right here. We seem like we live in the same place. But I, like all of the mothers, and all of the fathers, and wives, and husbands, and children, and brothers, and sisters and loved ones of the stolen—we all actually live on a different planet. Our planet of no sleep, our planet of despair, our planet of tears. And the hatred being showered on Israel now.... I keep being asked about that. First, in an article I read by Nicholas Kristof, it was so eloquently stated that if you only get outraged when one side's babies are killed, then your moral compass is broken. And your humanity is broken. And therefore, in your quiet moments alone, all of us, everywhere on planet earth need to really ask ourselves, “Do I aspire to be human, or am I swept up in the enticing and delicious world of hatred?” This is not a phenomenon unique to Israel or Gaza, this is everywhere on our planet.
I understand that hatred of "the other," however we decide that "other" to be, is seductive, sensuous, and, most importantly, hatred is easy. But hatred is not actually helpful nor is it constructive. In a competition of pain, there is never a winner. One thing gave me a whisper of hope from all the horror on October 7: one of the witnesses with whom I spoke told me that when the rocket fire first began, and all those young music loving hippies went running into the bomb shelter, a Bedouin man who was a guard at the kibbutz across the street also ran inside for cover. As Hamas closed in on the bomb shelter, this man told the young people, "Stay quiet and let me go out to talk to them." He went out and in Arabic said, "I'm a Muslim. Everyone inside is my family, we are Muslim. You don't have to search in there." He tried to save them. He could have just said, "I am a Muslim" and just saved himself, but he tried to do the right thing even though it was terrifying and even though it required unimaginable courage. He was brutally beaten, and the witnesses do not know what his fate was. But I take comfort, even for a fleeting moment, knowing there was someone trying to do the right thing, even when everything in the universe had turned upside down.
We human beings have been blessed with the gift of intellect, creativity, insight, and perception. Why are we not using it to solve global conflicts all over our world? Because doing this is hard and it takes fortitude, imagination, grit, risk, and hope. So instead, we opt for hatred because it is so comfortable, familiar and it is so very, very easy.

What Blessing Do You Say When You Suddenly Get Your Life Back? Jacky Levy
“The kids have returned!” That is all we can mumble. While our family is usually very verbal, during this long period when the children were in captivity, everything had shrunk to a few isolated words of hope: “They will come back!” For two months, our inability to speak threw us into the arms of old songs and biblical verses, the Israeli musical feed, and the childhood heritage of our Judaism. Every classic line, every verse, and every word revealed itself anew. Suddenly they were charged with relevance as if they had been written just for this moment.
Ever since we finally saw the faces of the children of Kibbutz Nir Oz, and among them, our family members, Sahar and Erez, the words from the opening of the Psalm recited on Passover: “Praise God! For God is good and God’s steadfast love is eternal!” have been coursing through my heart. “Thus let the redeemed of the Lord say, those God redeemed from adversity” (Psalm 107:1-2).
How often have I recited these well-worn festive words, without taking the time to think about how those redeemed really feel? What does a human being feel and say when he is granted his life anew after having been held hostage in the hands of his enemy? After loved ones have spent days, weeks, or months in a place where their lives are not worth a cent, suddenly the time for a hug arrives—the very opposite of the clutches of “the enemy’s hands.” Apparently, one should say, “Praise God! For God is good and God’s steadfast love is eternal!”
Even though, in this leftwing Zionist family of kibbutzniks, I am almost the only one who prays and feels at home among these ancient verses, something like “Praise God!” is exactly what the children’s mother, Hadas, said. She said these words after she was told that they had been liberated and after she roared like a lioness who had just rescued her cubs from the teeth of the jackals. After Hadas stretched up her arms to the heavens (arms that I think have of late become elongated by ten centimeters), she said, “Yes, there is a God!” That is just an updated version of saying “Praise God! For God is good!”