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I was recently sitting in a restaurant and noticed something on the menu called a “viral carrot salad.” Curious, I asked the worker whether it was actually viral or if they just called it that. He smiled and said, “We called it viral… and it became viral because we called it that.”

That interaction has been sitting with me as we approach Passover.

Sometimes things become popular on their own, and sometimes when we decide to make something matter-when we lean in with intention, energy, and confidence, and by doing so, we make it spread and become viral.

I think Passover this year is one of those moments.

We are living through a time when many of us are feeling the weight of what’s happening around them. Antisemitism is not theoretical anymore, it’s something we as a community are navigating in our lives and on campus, every day.

And every year, as if speaking directly to our moment, we say at the Seder: “In every generation, they rise up against us.”

But the story never ends there.

The response of the Jewish people has never been to shrink. It has always been to come together, to tell our story, and to live our Judaism with strength and pride.

And sometimes, that requires something more intentional from us.

Sometimes we need to make it viral.

We need to walk into this Passover with a sense of excitement and purpose and create Passover Seders that our children and our students feel are alive, meaningful, and awesome. Not because we labeled them that way, but because we chose to invest in them that way. Because we brought the energy, warmth, and the pride that turns an experience into something people want to be part of.

At JGO, we see this clearly. When a program feels real, students don’t just attend, they bring others, they come back, and it grows. That doesn’t happen by accident but it happens because something authentic is being created and shared.

This Passover, we have that same opportunity to show our children, our families, and our students that Judaism is not something that is fading or fragile, but something that is alive, resilient, and deeply meaningful. To create an environment where being Jewish feels like something to be proud of and excited about.

If we do that, if we bring that mindset into our homes and our campuses, then our Passover will spread, it will resonate and it will become something that people want to be part of.

And in that sense, it will become viral. Because we made it so.

Happy Passover!