We’ve all had to grapple with what freedom means over the last two years. We have all relinquished freedoms in order to protect one another and look after the greater good. As rabbis we had to have heart breaking conversations limiting families freedoms both in how they mourn, and how they celebrate. We hope we will never have to do so again, but who knows?
Freedom is something that for me cannot be separated from an experience I had as a student Rabbi. Some 15 years ago, on the day before Pesach, I found myself at Her Majesty’s Prison, Holloway. I wasn’t being incarcerated, but I was shadowing the Chaplain to the Prison, Rabbi Rebecca Burke, and together we were providing the few Jewish prisoners there with a seder experience. I had been worrying about the seder for the week preceding it, trying to imagine how on earth I could glibly discuss the Pesach message of freedom with women who had none. One lady in particular, let’s call her Miriam, in the 7th week of a 10 week sentence, worried me. She was in prison for swearing at a Judge during a trial for something that was unlikely to result in imprisonment. When we had first met the week before she had been raging against her incarceration, and even the mention of the word seder had brought tears gushing to her eyes. Yet she surprised everyone at our little Pesach service by bursting into well-remembered songs with Iraqi and Israeli tunes, despite having difficulties with her sight that meant that she couldn’t even see the text.
Most surprising of all, was when we arrived at the last section of the Haggadah, and began ‘Next Year in Jerusalem’. This phrase suddenly rang true for Miriam: “This has been my year in slavery” she explained. “Next year I will return to Israel”. The ancient text of the seder meal was true for Miriam right here and now, and she suddenly had the courage to face her situation, and acknowledge the remarkable and painful journey the last year had been for her. I’m not sure Pesach will ever speak as strongly to me as it did to Miriam that year. Her turbulent journey was summarised in one simple hope that Jews have expressed through the ages; ‘BShana Haba’ah b’Yerushalayim’ ‘Next year in Jerusalem’. Having said that, the first seder said in lockdown was poignant in all sorts of other ways, not least in helping us discover new ways to be together, so that we could take responsibility for one another’s safety. We were not entirely free, and I remember at the end of the evening saying not ‘Next year in Jerusalem’ but ‘Next year out of lockdown!’.
Our parashah is the beginning of this journey from slavery to freedom. It is not a straight path. As we will read next week, and as Raphi mentioned in his d’var torah, we are given freedom, but it comes with the responsibility of Jewish law and building a successful society. The complicated layers of what goes into striking the right balance between community building and individual freedoms seem very poignant today, particularly in a week where so much of the public discourse has been taken up with debates around the rights of the individual and vaccination, and how responsibility for following rules is taken up by those in power.
The children of Israel did not always appreciate their freedom, particularly as they faced a wilderness where there were food shortages, power struggles, and a host of other things for them to complain about. 29 years ago, when I read this portion at my Bat Mitzvah, I read the final section where we heard the Israelites begin to whinge and moan about lack of food. The Israelites had to think about providing for themselves in ways they would never have had to worry about as slaves, and the bitterness of that life that we remember with maror at Pesach, was quickly forgotten by the Israelites who began to idealize the apparently ‘safe’ world they had left behind. But freedom from slavery in Egypt also meant taking responsibility for themselves and their own actions, much as I saw Miriam do in Holloway Prison. Ahad HaAm (the central figure of cultural or spiritual Zionism) asked[1] in 1902: “What is national freedom if not a people’s inner freedom to cultivate its abilities along the beaten path of its history?” How could the members of the tribes of Israel really know who they were without the autonomy to discover their true abilities? So theirs is a journey of self-discovery and transformation, not just mindless trudging. I wouldn’t want to rose tint the last two years in any ways, but perhaps they have taught us things about ourselves individually and collectively. Perhaps we have come to appreciate our freedoms differently, and to be more conscious of what it means to look after one another.
We all follow the paths of those who have gone before us on their journeys, and they all influence who we have and will become, but we must also make our own choices to discover who we really are, and can be. And today, Raphi and Natasha, you have both completed one part of your paths. But you are also both beginning along new ones. You have gained a sort of freedom, but this is the start of a journey in which you now have to take responsibility for yourselves and your Judaism. In choosing to mark your Bar Mitzvah and Conversion with the ceremonies we enjoyed today, you have begun these new stages by celebrating within a kehilla kadosha, a holy community, and to grasp the opportunity for learning and celebrating that they offer you. As Reform Jews, choices and responsibility are incredibly important to us. It is not an easy path, but one where we must constantly make informed choices, which are based on study, engagement, and a strong sense of what is compelling and dynamic for each us in our Judaism. But we do this with this support and companionship of our community, and by taking responsibility for what it means to be a part of a community.
Much of the anger directed at tennis players and politicians this week has been rooted in this sense of what it is to be part of a movement that takes responsibility for one another. There are of course on going debates about the balance of the individual versus the communal good, but as Jews who value both the informed decision of each of us, and the power we have to act as a force for good collectively, continuing to grapple with these challenges is important.
As a society perhaps we are also standing on the edge of the Red Sea. We look ahead to the other side. We still have a dangerous crossing ahead, but it feels as though the banks of safety are in sight. Over the coming months we will continue to collectively consider what it means to live responsibly both with one another, and with a virus that may now be becoming endemic rather than pandemic. I find myself hoping that the behaviour of the few does not tip that of the many into selfish embrace of freedom. The Exodus narrative has for generations asked us to hold in balance the blessing of our freedom and the importance of our responsibilities. Now is the time for us all to cherish this part of our Torah teaching, and to cross through the sea together, so that we can build a future on the other side. We are not in a prison, but we do want to be able to say ‘Next Year in Jerusalem’ at seder tables where we are free to invite all those we love and cherish.
Freedom and responsibility. Two such simple words, which perhaps I have over complicated this morning. But as Raphi and Natasha begin their lives living their Judaism as they freely choose, while also taking responsibility for what it means to be a part of a community, may we all be blessed with opportunities to celebrate freedom, and to exercise our responsibilities wisely.
Shabbat Shalom!
[1] in HaShiloah (he is also known as Asher Ginsberg)
