This week’s Parsha marks the beginning of the Jewish
people’s freedom from slavery in Egypt. It begins where last week’s
Parsha left off, with the last 3 of the 10 plagues, and then continues with
Pharaoh allowing the people to go free and of their preparations to leave. In
addition, the Jewish concept of freedom begins to emerge in this week’s
Parasha.
On the eve of the Jewish people’s departure from Egypt, Moses speaks to the people about educating their children on 3 different occasions. This is important because it is teaching us that the importance of freedom is about much more than just achieving freedom from bondage. Moses could have spoken about how great it will be to free and how amazing God is for freeing the Jews. Instead, he chooses to reveal those lessons through the perspective of “you will teach your children about those things.” Because freedom is about much more than just being freed from slavery, freedom needs to be about preserving that freedom as well.
According to Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Judaism’s concept of freedom needs 3 institutions to exist; parenthood, eduction and memory. “You must tell your children (and the children of your community) about slavery and the long journey to liberation. They must annually taste the bread of affliction and biiter herbs of slave labour. They must know what oppression feels like if they are to fight against it in every age. So Jews became the people whose passions was education, whose citadels were schools, and whose heroes were teachers. Covenant and Conversation, p. 78-79.”
There is a line from Pirkei Avoth 6:2 which says, “There is no one so free as one who occupies himself with the study of Torah.” Because true freedom is about the ability to rise above our passions, to control ourselves, and in the words of Rabbi Sacks, “To control oneself without having to be controlled by others.”
With this understanding we see that freedom is more than just doing whatever we want, and it’s not just another word for nothing left to lose (from the popular song, Me and my Bobby Mcgee). Freedom is sometimes expressed in our ability to not do whatever we want, to control our passions. The Torah teaches us how to do this. When we learn Torah and follow the Tora,h we learn how to control ourselves, and we keep ourselves from falling into unbreakable habits and from becoming slaves to the culture around us. Torah gives us the means to march to the beat of our own drummer.
On the eve of the Jewish people’s departure from Egypt, Moses speaks to the people about educating their children on 3 different occasions. This is important because it is teaching us that the importance of freedom is about much more than just achieving freedom from bondage. Moses could have spoken about how great it will be to free and how amazing God is for freeing the Jews. Instead, he chooses to reveal those lessons through the perspective of “you will teach your children about those things.” Because freedom is about much more than just being freed from slavery, freedom needs to be about preserving that freedom as well.
According to Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Judaism’s concept of freedom needs 3 institutions to exist; parenthood, eduction and memory. “You must tell your children (and the children of your community) about slavery and the long journey to liberation. They must annually taste the bread of affliction and biiter herbs of slave labour. They must know what oppression feels like if they are to fight against it in every age. So Jews became the people whose passions was education, whose citadels were schools, and whose heroes were teachers. Covenant and Conversation, p. 78-79.”
There is a line from Pirkei Avoth 6:2 which says, “There is no one so free as one who occupies himself with the study of Torah.” Because true freedom is about the ability to rise above our passions, to control ourselves, and in the words of Rabbi Sacks, “To control oneself without having to be controlled by others.”
With this understanding we see that freedom is more than just doing whatever we want, and it’s not just another word for nothing left to lose (from the popular song, Me and my Bobby Mcgee). Freedom is sometimes expressed in our ability to not do whatever we want, to control our passions. The Torah teaches us how to do this. When we learn Torah and follow the Tora,h we learn how to control ourselves, and we keep ourselves from falling into unbreakable habits and from becoming slaves to the culture around us. Torah gives us the means to march to the beat of our own drummer.
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