In each and every
generation - and in fact every single year - we are obligated to see
ourselves as having personally left the slavery of Egypt,
no doubt an educational and experiential tool designed to
fully sensitize us to the meaning of the holiday!
Or, perhaps, do each one of us in some literal way actually experience
the Exodus again and again... last year, this year, next year,
the year after?
A closer look at the meaning of true freedom provides an answer valid
for all periods of history, and any time or place we'll find ourselves
personally situated.
Gaining
Our Freedom
Each and Every Year: A Pesach Message
By
Judah S. Harris
Once
again we find
ourselves celebrating the yom tov of Pesach - the same holiday we
celebrated
last year at this time, and next year we’ll be doing the same.
Traditionally,
Pesach commemorates the exodus of the Jewish People from Egypt. The
exodus from
Egypt was a pivotal point in our becoming a people; we gained our
freedom -
both physically, and very soon after, spiritually. We refer to the
holiday as
the time of our freedom, "Z’man Chairusenu," and the Pesach seder -
all its obligations and practices – thoroughly stresses the message of
freedom
and God’s redemption of the Jewish people throughout the ages.
That
Pesach has its
own set of special practices and mitzvot is not surprising; most of the
holidays we observe do. But where Pesach stands unique is in the fact
that we
don’t only set out to remember what happened - utilizing the symbolism
of the
mitzvos, or specific wording of the liturgy and blessings of the
holiday - rather,
we retell the story in a way that is designed to make it as real as
possible,
and with the unique instruction that we should consider it “as if…” we
too are
the ones who actually participated in this magnitudinal event. The
Rambam in
his wording in the Mishnah Torah stresses this point. “In every
generation one
is obligated to see themself as if they left right now from slavery in
Egypt."
Is
this requirement
to personalize the exodus from slavery in Egypt intended as an
educational,
experiential tool? If so, it’s highly effective. Perhaps the
requirement to see
ourselves as having “just” been freed is based on the logic that we’re
free
today because our ancestors were freed then? It was a long time ago,
but we
live with their gained freedom.
But
the specific
language suggests that there's more... Rav Dessler writes that “Zman
Chairusenu” has literal meaning. The month of Nisan is a month of
“geulah,” of
redemption. The Gemara in Rosh Hashana (11A) says in the name of Rabbi
Yehoshua, “B’Nisan nigalu, b’Nisan asidin l’gael, In Nisan we were
redeemed,
and in Nisan we will be redeemed in the future.” Nisan, we’re told, is
a highly
auspicious time for redemption. The Torah, which doesn’t name the
months, but
refers to them by numbers, considers Nisan the first of the months, or
“Rosh
Chodashim,” which the Medrash says is “Rosh l’geulah,” “the first, or
foremost,
for "geulah."
But
if gaining our
freedom is in some way a constant from year to year, and this year
we’ll gain
it again, what exactly is the freedom that we gain each year anew? And
what was
the freedom that was achieved at the time the Jews left Egypt?
Seemingly, it
wasn’t a complete freedom - we became free of Egyptian mastery but
almost
immediately accepted upon ourselves the “yoke” of heaven and of God’s
mitzvos.
God says clearly that the Jewish people are his servants and no one
else’s,
“Avadai haim v’lo avadim l’avadim.” We never gained our total
freedom at
the Exodus, but by leaving the physical and spiritual incarceration of
the land
of Egypt, the Jewish people gained what we consider a truer freedom,
one most
valuable to humankind: the freedom to choose.
True
freedom, we
learn (as children and usually more so as adults) is not to be free
from all
influences that exist, rather to be free to actively choose which of
those
influences – and there are so many - will influence us. We need
structure,
direction, and boundaries (in order to live life to its full
potential). This,
the Torah provided, as soon as the constraints of Egypt and all that it
represented
were lifted and the Jewish people were free enough to choose for
themselves.
Seven weeks after the Exodus, the Jewish people used their newfound
ability and
chose to accept God’s word, “Na’ase v’nishma…” They didn’t become
totally free
from influences, they became totally free to choose those influences.
They
chose to be influenced by the Torah; they chose that as their
destiny.
Freedom
means
different things to different people, depending so much on their place
in life,
and a myriad of variables. We tend to think of it as the ultimate in
human
existence – to be free! And if we ponder the question of whether it’s
better
to be free from the start or better to go from slavery to freedom, we
might say
that the answer is quite obvious. Not having the problem to start with
is
always best. Isn’t it? Would it not have been better if the Jewish
people were
never slaves?
But
in his Sefer
HaTodaah, Eliyahu Kitov writes that the person “who never tasted” the
slavery
in Egypt can’t taste the taste of geulah, of redemption. He states
that if
Bnei Yisrael hadn’t been enslaved in Egypt they would never have
merited being
free people.
The
message sounds a
lot like “we appreciate and value something more if we at one point
didn’t have
it (in this case our freedom), and then we acquire it.” But
there's
a much more significant point here,
one which provides
explanation as to why we are obligated to see ourselves as having
personally
experienced the exodus from Egypt.
Being
free is an
ultimate, but there's one step before that. It's that
transitionary time,
the leaving of slavery, the becoming a free person
that's key, and
necessary for true freedom. When one leaves slavery, any slavery, and
gains
their freedom, they gain both the ability to make choices for
themselves
and also a unique awareness of their capacity - the human capacity
- to
choose, at every single step along the way. Transitioning to
freedom makes
one keenly aware of this capacity. The individual who's always had the
ability
to choose remains limited in exercising that freedom,
lacking a
heightened awareness of the power of choice present in all
circumstances,
stymied when facing tougher choices, unclear ones, abandoning
the
freedom of choice in situations where it seems as if choice is not
possible, unbearable at best, even undesirable. The newly freed
individual
relishes in choice, readily admits that not all possibilities can be
chosen, but knows that choice, in some shape or form, is
always possible.
Every Pesach,
each Nisan we gain our freedom, by regaining our awareness of
our
freedom. We place ourselves at the pivotal point of transitioning
from
slavery to freedom, reminding ourselves that the ability to choose
indeed
exists. In every generation we have to see ourselves as just
released,
newly capable of choice. Nisan reminds us of that power that we
have; it
empowers us to maneuver the world that we live in.
We
all face a
determined world - the family we are born into, the geographic place,
the era,
the gender, soci-economic situation... Free Will, we
believe, exists. Not
because we can choose the best of all worlds. We can’t, usually. But we
can
choose something in every situation. Bechirah, Rav Dessler writes, is
about
acknowledging truth. We are free to choose that which we believe
to be
true. He speaks of the Bechirah point, one that shifts, depending on a
person's
situation, nature, propensity... As he explains it, easy decisions and
extremely difficult ones don't involve our Bechirah Chofshis;
they're
either too easy or too hard. But those choices that are at the exact
point
where a person could go "either way," this is where the human ability
to choose (right over wrong, good over bad, truth over falsehood)
forcefully comes to play.
We're no freer from the challenges of
choosing today than we
were last year, then we'll be next year, than people were
3000 years
ago, at the time of the exodus from Egypt. And yet we're as free
to choose as people always have been, and as aware
people always will be.
Judah S. Harris is a
photographer, filmmaker, speaker and writer. He produces visual
marketing
materials for corporations and organizations and provides photography
and film for a wide range of family and organizational events. Learn
more about his work or sign
up for
his mailing list at www.judahsharris.com/visit.
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