In February 2026 hundreds of Haredi men in Bnei Brak chased two female IDF soldiers through the streets, overturned a police car, set a police motorcycle on fire, and torched trash bins while blocking major roads. Similar riots erupted on Highway 4 near Bnei Brak where Peleg Yerushalmi protesters lay on the pavement, halted traffic for hours, and clashed with officers. In Jerusalem neighborhoods demonstrators blocked intersections, burned garbage, and disrupted daily life whenever yeshiva students faced draft enforcement. The outrage filled the streets with smoke and overturned vehicles. Now Passover 2026 begins April 1 and the same streets sit quiet. Religious communities search their homes with a feather and candle for every trace of chametz (leaven) yet leave the Temple Mount untouched and the single national korban Pesach (Passover offering) unoffered.

The Bible commands this offering at the precise place Hashem chose. “You may not sacrifice the Passover offering within any of your gates, which the Lord your God gives you; but at the place which the Lord your God shall choose to cause His name to dwell in, there you shall sacrifice the Passover offering at even, at the going down of the sun, at the season that you came forth out of Egypt.” (Deuteronomy 16:5-6)

The Sages teach that this single national korban Pesach stands as a fixed-time public offering brought on behalf of the entire people of Israel. The Mishnah in Pesachim 7:6 states: “If the [entire] congregation, or a majority are impure, or the kohanim are impure and the congregation is pure – it is done in impurity.” Rambam rules in Hilchot Korban Pesach and Hilchot Bi’at HaMikdash that time-sensitive communal offerings may be brought even in a state of ritual impurity when the majority of the community carries tumat met (impurity from contact with the dead). The slaughter, blood presentation on the altar, and the core act of offering proceed. Individual eating of the meat........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)