'We won't get fooled again!'

(JNS) — Passover began this year on the evening of April 1, April Fools’ Day. It’s known as the day when practical jokes and hoaxes are perpetrated on unsuspecting victims, with the pranksters usually exposing themselves by shouting “April Fools!” This year’s timing is curiously coincidental, but arguably not without significance.

The theme of Passover is succinctly stated in the Haggadah itself: “We were slaves unto Pharaoh in Egypt, and God took us out with a strong hand and an outstretched arm. If the Holy One, Blessed be He, had not taken our ancestors out of Egypt, we and our children and...