Gaining Our Freedom Each and Every Year: A Pesach Message
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 was a pivotal point in our becoming a people; we gained our freedom – physically and, very soon after, spiritually. We refer to the holiday as the time of our freedom, “Z’man Chairusenu,” and all the Seder’s obligations and practices thoroughly stress the message of freedom and God’s redemption of the Jewish people throughout the ages.
That Pesach has its own set of practices and mitzvot is not surprising; most of the holidays we observe do. But where Pesach stands unique is that we are not only obligated to remember what happened – utilizing the symbolism of the commandments, or the specific wording of the liturgy and blessings of the holiday – rather, we are obligated to retell the story in a way that is designed to make it as real as possible, and with the novel 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 oneself as if one left right now from slavery in Egypt.”
Is this requirement to personalize the Exodus from 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 “Z’man Chairusenu” has literal meaning. The month of Nisan is a month of “geulah,” of redemption. 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 once 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 an absolute freedom – we became free of Egyptian mastery but almost immediately accepted upon ourselves the “yoke” of Heaven and of God’s mitzvos. Indeed, God describes us as His servants, “Avadai haim,” which tradition reads as implying “v’lo avadim l’avadim, not slaves to slaves.” 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 possible influences, but 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 Jewish people were free enough to choose for themselves. Seven weeks after the Exodus, we used our newfound ability and chose to accept God’s word, “Na’ase v’nishma…” The Jews of that time had not become free from influences; they had become 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 on a myriad of variables. We tend to think of freedom 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 begin with is always best. Isn’t it? Would it not have been better if the Jewish people were never slaves?
Yet, in his Sefer HaTodaah, Eliyahu Kitov writes that the person “who never tasted” slavery can’t taste the taste of “geulah,” of redemption. He suggests that if Bnei Yisrael hadn’t been enslaved in Egypt they would never have been able to be free; “it’s the slavery itself that gives birth to the redemption.” The message sounds similar to: “We appreciate and value those aspects of our lives we lacked and only then acquired.” But there’s a much more significant point to be found here, one which explains why we are obligated to see ourselves as having personally experienced the Exodus.
Being free is the ultimate, but the process of leaving slavery and becoming free is essential for obtaining true freedom. When individuals gain freedom by leaving slavery (of whatever kind), 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. Only transitioning to freedom makes us fully 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, and sometimes abandoning that freedom completely in situations where it seems as if choice is not possible. The newly freed individual relishes 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 secure our freedom by regaining our awareness of it. By placing ourselves at the pivotal point of transitioning from lack of choice to right and responsibility of choice, we remind ourselves of that ability that indeed exists. In every generation we have to see ourselves as just released, newly capable of choice. Pesach, the time of our freedom, and Nisan, the month of geulah, herald that power that we each have, and with our newly discovered freedom, we are strengthened to maneuver the world that we live in year-round.
We all face a greatly determined world. Much of our lives are decided for us – the family we are born into, the geographic place, the era, the gender, socio-economic situation… At the same time, we believe in free will. Not because we can choose the best of all worlds, since we can’t, usually, but we can choose something in every situation. Bechirah, Rav Dessler writes, is about “relinquishing illusion and opting for truth.” He speaks of the “Bechira Point”, one that shifts, depending on a person’s knowledge, situation, nature, propensity – all sorts of factors and influences. As he explains it, easy decisions (choices) and extremely difficult ones don’t involve our Bechira 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. This is the point where a person is tempted to go against the truth as he knows it, and this is the only point which truly involves choice.
Our choices change, but we’re no freer from the challenges of choosing today than we were last year, then we’ll be next year, then people were 3000 years ago, at the time of the original Pesach. And yet, we’re reminded this season, that we’re as free to choose as people always have been, and as aware people always will be.