Pesach’s message of liberation
Pesach is zman cheiruteinu, the time of our freedom. For many
Jews, Pesach is the living moment when we annually re-enact
the story of the Exodus in order to recommit ourselves to the
values of liberation and justice that make it such a particular
and universal story.
We read at the seder that in every generation, we are obligated
to see ourselves as if we personally came out of Egypt. We read
also that it is our duty to retell that story of the Exodus and
whosoever expands upon the telling is ‘m’shubach,’ worthy of
praise.
On the first and second night we connect ourselves deeply to
the mission and purpose of the Pesach seder itself: to
intertwine our own story of oppression and liberation with the
experiences of others, in order to stand in solidarity and fight
alongside them.
For if we understand ourselves to have personally come out of
Egypt, then we know, as Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch writes,
“Any oppression of human rights opens the gate to the
indiscriminate use of power and abuse of human beings that is
the root of the entire abomination of [our experience in]
Egypt.”
As the Jewish tradition teaches us in Pesachim, the volume of
the Talmud devoted to Pesach itself, we should begin the Seder
in degradation and end in glory.
Why? Because we began as slaves, and now we are liberated.
This journey through the seder night, from oppression to
liberation, calls us to speak out against the oppression of
others.
Just as at the end of the seder, we say ‘Next year in Jerusalem!’
we mean symbolically ‘Next year in a world where all are free!’
We commit this year, and every year, to stand with others for
their liberation.
Rabbi Leah Jordan
A
Community