Ernest Shackleton’s Passover

With just a one-word telegram from Winston Churchill in 1914, the world of exploration would be transformed. Irish-British explorer Ernest Shackleton received a telegram from Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, reading “proceed.” Shackleton, along with his Norwegian ship Endurance and a crew of 28, set sail for Antarctica. After Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen became the first to reach the South Pole in 1911, Shackleton and his team wanted to be the first to cross Antarctica. Yet things did not go as planned. As they approached Antarctica, the seas began to freeze, and Shackleton and his men got trapped in the ice for over a year. After waiting a long time for the ice to melt, the Endurance ship was crushed by the ice. A few weeks later, the crew had to salvage everything from the ship before it sank. As the ice began to melt, Shackleton and his crew took their lifeboats to Elephant Island.

Leaving the rest of the crew on the island, Shackleton and five men set sail in a 22-foot lifeboat for an 800-mile journey to South Georgia Island. If they missed their navigation by even one degree, they would be lost. After landing on the island, Shackleton realized he didn’t have enough time to walk all the way around it to where there were ships and people, so he braved the mountains, valleys, and frozen lakes of the island, just to reach help. He managed to get a ship and returned to Elephant Island to rescue the rest of his crew. Shackleton returned to England with the impossible: everyone on his crew was alive and had earned eternal fame for his leadership. Dozens of books, films, and events have been dedicated to the brave leader who went so far, faced such horror, and brought all 28 members of his crew to safety.

And yet, when you ask yourself whose crew you would like to be on—the risk-taking Shackleton with all his crises, or the much lesser-known Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, who actually reached the South Pole first, was a meticulous planner, and avoided crises by planning carefully—you probably would say the latter. The boring Amundsen makes for less drama and is not as good for Hollywood, but he avoids crises and ensures you don’t get into trouble.

Most of us, if not all, would agree that we would want to be with the quiet and precise explorer Roald Amundsen, who was obsessively dedicated to planning and detail, rather than with the more adventurous Shackleton, despite it making for a good film. That being the case, it leaves us wondering about the Exodus from Egypt and the Passover story as a whole: Do we prefer being part of the dramatic Exodus from Egypt, or would we have preferred being a nation of shepherds who were never subjected to slavery at all?

Perhaps our minds are reeling with Jacob’s burning desire for tranquility, as articulated by Rashi at the beginning of Parshat Vayeshev: “Bikesh Ya’akov Leshev B’shalva,” Jacob sought to sit in tranquility. So why is it that we keep celebrating slavery and redemption on Passover? Would our story not be far better if it included no tragedy and no salvation?

To answer this, we look at the story of American Jewry, especially since October 7th. The story for the Jewish people is a constant embrace of, on the one hand, “Bikesh Ya’akov Leshev B’shalva” (Jacob sought to sit in tranquility) and “Le’ma’an Tesaper” (so that you should tell your story). On one hand, there is nothing we strive for more than peace, tranquility, and being left alone. On the other hand, like Shackleton, who appears in countless leadership seminars from Harvard Business School to what every explorer is taught, we know that our story will inspire. We know we have the obligation to ensure our story is told. When inflicting the plagues on Pharaoh, Hashem tells Moshe the goal of the plagues is “Le’ma’an Tesaper”—it is to make sure our story is told properly to future generations. While slavery in Egypt had many reasons—from Hashem punishing Abraham for asking “Bameh Edah?” (How will I know You will give me the land?) to the Pasuk in Devarim (4:20), referring to Egypt as “Kur HaBarzel,” the crucible and melting pot for Bnei Yisrael to be created from—the holiday of Passover is about one and only one purpose of what we went through in Egypt: “Le’ma’an Tesaper,” so that we tell our story.

The uniqueness of the Jewish story is one that has captivated the world like no other story. It is a story now used by the vast majority of the world to describe themselves. Even when attacked by our enemies, our very own stories are taken by them to describe themselves. It is the holiday of Passover that embodies most of our story.

While we have often been happy for others to share in our story, our own story has also been used against us. From the Dark Ages’ religious hatred to this day, others have used our own story against us, and it is for us to reclaim that story.

Last week, in early April 2025, a new Pew study found that 53% of U.S. adults express an unfavorable view of Israel. For the first time in history, the majority of Americans began viewing Israel negatively, contrasted with 60% who say they view Palestinians favorably. The most surprising aspect of this survey was the sharp decline in support for Israel among young Republicans, completing the generational gap in support for Israel. While part of this is the price of a long and seemingly endless war in Israel, much of it is also due to Israel’s need—and our need—to do a better job at telling our story.

In October 1939, as Germany began implementing the horrors of the Holocaust in Poland, a young man working for the JDC, named Emanuel Ringelblum, began the sacred task of documenting the lives of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto. Ringelblum got more and more Jews involved. They would meet on Shabbat afternoons to discuss the unbearable reality of the Ghetto and the work they were doing. The group was able to gather the testimony of the first person able to escape the Chelmno death camp and pass that information on to the exiled Polish government in London, who tried to share it with a world that didn’t want to hear. The story later became a book and a movie titled Who Will Write Our History?

While we all wish we could be on Amundsen’s trip to the South Pole, a meticulously planned trip that went smoothly and few know about, our reality is one of those on Shackleton’s expedition. It may not be simple and easy, but it is a well-known chapter of history that is still being written.

The challenge of our generation is telling our story. The American, Jewish, and Israeli stories are simply not one we can take for granted. They are ones that we all can and must be a part of.