In Praise of Freedom
Photo: sheldonkirshner.com
Passover 5782
Ben Volman, UMJC Vice President
In a world that is coping with unrelenting plagues and an autocrat's callous war on helpless civilians, observing Passover has never seemed more relevant. We’ve rediscovered the value and fragility of our freedom. People are rethinking choices that feel new again. They’re asking: “What will I do now, where will I go, how will I live?” The watchword of freedom has rarely burned so brightly.
For Israel, the message of freedom at Passover has never diminished over the millennia. The Seder has kept the experience fresh in our national memory as it embodies the promise that God hears and responds to the cries of his people. “Avadim hayinu l’Pharoah b’Mitzraim . . . We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt and the Lord our God brought us out of there with a strong hand and an outstretched arm.”
Moreover, the story of Passover has become a spark of hope wherever Bible readers yearned for freedom. As the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks noted: in every other setting, the gods of this world were propping up the kings, tyrants and emperors. Rulers imagined they were gods or the children of gods. It seemed right for the strong to rule the weak.
“That God,” said Sacks, “creator of heaven and earth, might intervene in history to liberate slaves was the ultimately unthinkable.” Yet, it was in his power to reverse the world’s hierarchies and raise up those who were cast down; to side with the humble—the widow, the orphan and stranger; to sovereignly declare freedom for the oppressed.
The war in Ukraine has linked all our personal reflections with a more pressing confrontation; sometimes there is a battle to gain freedom from tyranny. We’d only be in denial to think that all the darkest hours of tyranny are behind us. Today we are witnessing cold-blooded actions that have recklessly killed thousands of civilians and displaced millions. There are times when the battle for freedom demands that we take up arms and there is no telling where the current conflict may lead, despite the restraint of our leaders.
In Egypt, it was only through the power of God exercising his will against the gods of Egypt that the conflict with Pharaoh didn’t climax in a battle of arms. Moshe had already failed while trying to take the path of violence. The challenge was one of faith and perseverance. Israel didn’t even need to fight the final battle with Pharaoh. Instead, Moshe commanded, “Stop being so fearful! Remain steady, and you will see how God is going to save you” (Exod 14:13).
Down through the centuries, through the darkest days and nights of Israel’s history, the Seder has never failed to give us hope. God hears the cries of his people and will not fail to save them. Every year we explain our faith to a new generation as our own personal experience: “It is because of what Adonai did for me when I left Egypt” (Exod 13:8; see also 12:27). And as the Haggadah reminds us, we were saved by our God: “Not through an angel, not through a seraph, not through an emissary. No, it was the Holy One, his glory, his own presence.”
Yeshua’s Seder, too, is focused on the presence of God’s power to save. While his disciples are subdued, Yeshua, who alone knows fully what will take place within hours, assures them that their hearts should not be troubled—they will know how to follow him. When they question how that is possible, he answers “I AM the Way—and the Truth and the Life” (John 14:6).
The sacrifice that will make him our Passover lamb for all time is his ultimate act by choice:
I lay down my life—in order to take it up again! No one takes it away from me; on the contrary, I lay it down of my own free will. I have the power to lay it down, and I have the power to take it up again. (John 10:17–18)
Even as Yeshua prepares to leave for Gethsemane, he provides reassuring promises of hope that his followers will not be able to understand until later:
I no longer call you slaves, because a slave doesn’t know what his master is about; but I have called you friends, because everything I have heard from the Father, I have made known to you . . . and I have commissioned you to go and bear fruit. (John 15:15–16)
And later:
So you do indeed feel grief now, but I am going to see you again. Then your hearts will be full of joy, and no one will take your joy away from you. (John 16:22)
In a powerful sermon I’ve long admired, Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke of his own midnight crisis. It followed a sinister threatening phone call. It was day 381 of the Montgomery bus strike. “You’ve got to call on that something . . .” he said. “That power that can make a way out of no way. . . . I could hear an inner voice saying ‘stand up for righteousness, stand up for truth.’”
The city had taken legal action against the car pools getting strikers to their jobs. His people knew this could end their strike. King described the despair as “darker than a thousand midnights.” That afternoon, as they waited for the judge’s decision, the courtroom was buzzing when King was handed a press release: The Supreme Court today unanimously ruled bus segregation unconstitutional in Montgomery, Alabama. “The darkest hour of our struggle,” said King, “had become the first hour of victory.”
Why is this night different from all other nights? Thousands of years ago, we were slaves in Egypt, waiting by night behind doorways covered by the blood of a lamb. It was all that shielded us from death. By faith we entrusted our lives to God who sent us to freedom. Dayenu! It was sufficient.
All biblical citations are from Complete Jewish Bible (CJB).