Article published in Infobae on April 13, 2022
In this coming Passover, which begins on Friday night, April 15, we will remember a founding event of the Hebrew people: the liberation from pharaonic slavery and the creation of the people of Israel.
[IMAGEN
A small number of Jewish worshipers pray during the priestly blessing, a traditional prayer that often draws thousands of worshipers at the Western Wall on Passover day, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak (REUTERS /Ronen Zvulun)]
In this coming Passover, which begins on Friday night, April 15, we will remember a foundational event for the Hebrew people: the liberation from pharaonic slavery and the creation of the people of Israel. That night we will read a text that narrates this event: the Passover Haggadah.
There is a phrase that resonates strongly in the Haggadah and that touches us in an intimate and personal way, “In each generation, the person is forced to see (or show) himself as if he came out of slavery into freedom.” Each one of us has to feel internally as if he is freeing himself from pharaonic oppression and express it to others with his actions.
It is interesting that the text of the Haggadah does not speak of “Jews” but of “people”. Every human being has to look and show himself as if he is coming out of pharaonic slavery. This means that the freedom experienced that night has a universal dimension, which goes beyond Jewish particularism. There is an important message for all humanity.
In order to elucidate that message, we have to start with a question: What does it mean to be a slave?
One of the definitions of slavery given by the Jewish sages is that a free person works for himself, while a slave works for someone else. Therefore, a slave is not the owner of his own time: he is completely dependent on the will of another person, who controls his life. His entire existence is subjugated to a third party, who decides what he can and cannot do. If he works, he does it for the benefit of that other person, instead of for his own benefit.
The slave has his freedom completely limited: he cannot decide what to do with his time or his body. He cannot choose what to eat, what to consume or whom to marry. His boss dominates all the edges of his life. It is the property of the owner of it.
How much of what we think, feel, say and do really arises from us and how much is the product of environmental impositions and social or cultural pressures? Perhaps our freedom is not limited by a Pharaoh, but by the limits that we impose on ourselves out of shame or fear, by fashion and the opinion of the environment.
This is the message of Passover: each person has the primary right and obligation to create his or her own life. That is to say, make your own way, without external impositions. Only then will he achieve the real manifestation of the meaning of his existence.
Whoever submits to the slavery of going with the flow and not thinking, commits an act of self-annulment; without realizing it, he undermines his own potential as a human being. On the other hand, those who seek to subjugate others with bizarre impositions commit the sin of restricting the freedom of others.
Life only makes sense to the extent that we are free to think and act without getting carried away with someone else’s perspective. God created us to be ourselves, submitting only to God’s will to do well, and not to the whim of tyrants.
