Passover and liberty
[The following is a slightly edited repeat of a previous post.]
Tonight is the beginning of the Jewish holiday Passover.
I’ve been impressed by the fact that Passover is a religious holiday dedicated to an idea that’s not solely religious: freedom. Yes, it’s about a particular historical (or perhaps legendary) event: the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. But the Seder ceremony makes clear that, important though that specific event may be, freedom itself is also being celebrated.
A Seder is an amazing experience, a sort of dramatic acting out complete with symbols and lots of audience participation. Part of its power is that events aren’t placed totally in the past tense and regarded as ancient and distant occurrences; rather, the participants are specifically instructed to act as though it is they themselves who were slaves in Egypt, and they themselves who were given the gift of freedom, saying:
“This year we are slaves; next year we will be free people…”
Passover acknowledges that freedom (and liberty, not exactly the same thing but related) is an exceedingly important human desire and need. That same idea is present in the Declaration of Independence (which, interestingly enough, also cites the Creator):
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
It is ironic, of course, that when that Declaration was written, slavery was allowed in the United States. That was rectified, but only after great struggle, which goes to show how wide the gap often is between rhetoric and reality, and how difficult freedom is to achieve. And it comes as no surprise, either, that the Passover story appealed to slaves in America when they heard about it; witness the lyrics of “Let My People Go.”
Yes, the path to freedom is far from easy, and there are always those who would like to take it away. Sometimes an election merely means “one person, one vote, one time,” if human and civil rights are not protected by a constitution that guarantees them, and by a populace dedicated to defending them at almost all costs. Wars of liberation only give an opportunity for liberty, they do not guarantee it, and what we’ve observed in recent decades has been the difficult and sometimes failed task of attempting to foster it in places with no such tradition, and with neighbors dedicated to its obliteration.
We’ve also seen threats to liberty in our own country – more potent in the last couple of years. This is happening despite our long tradition of liberty and the importance Americans used to place on it.
Sometimes those who are against liberty are religious, like the mullahs. Sometimes they are secular, like the Communists or their present-day Russian successors. Some of them are cynical and power-mad; some are idealists who don’t realize that human beings were not made to conform to their rigid notions of the perfect world, and that attempts to force them to do so seem to inevitably end in horrific tyranny, and that this is no coincidence.
As one of my favorite authors Kundera wrote, in his Book of Laughter and Forgetting:
…human beings have always aspired to an idyll, a garden where nightingales sing, a realm of harmony where the world does not rise up as a stranger against man nor man against other men, where the world and all its people are molded from a single stock and the fire lighting up the heavens is the fire burning in the hearts of men, where every man is a note in a magnificent Bach fugue and anyone who refuses his note is a mere black dot, useless and meaningless, easily caught and squashed between the fingers like an insect.”
Note the seamless progression from lyricism to violence: no matter if it begins in idealistic dreams of an idyll, the relinquishment of freedom to further that dream will end with humans being crushed like insects.
Dostoevsky did a great deal of thinking about freedom as well. In his cryptic and mysterious Grand Inquisitor, a lengthy chapter from The Brothers Karamazov, he imagined a Second Coming. But this is a Second Coming in which the Grand Inquisitor rejects what Dostoevsky sees as Jesus’s message of freedom (those of you who’ve been around this blog for a long time will recognize this passage I often quote):
Oh, never, never can [people] feed themselves without us [the Inquisitors and controllers]! No science will give them bread so long as they remain free. In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet, and say to us, “Make us your slaves, but feed us.” They will understand themselves, at last, that freedom and bread enough for all are inconceivable together, for never, never will they be able to share between them! They will be convinced, too, that they can never be free, for they are weak, vicious, worthless, and rebellious. Thou didst promise them the bread of Heaven, but, I repeat again, can it compare with earthly bread in the eyes of the weak, ever sinful and ignoble race of man?
Freedom vs. bread is a false dichotomy. Dostoevsky was writing before the Soviets came to power, but now we have learned that lack of freedom, and a “planned” economy, is certainly no guarantee even of bread.
I think there’s another very basic need, one that perhaps can only really be appreciated when it is lost: liberty.
Happy Passover!
Shalom, Neo.
A very necessary reminder of the eternal struggle between freedom and tyranny. Freedom has not been the normal state of humans. In fact, a certain portion of the people can’t handle freedom – the responsibilities are too burdensome. And there are too many who wish to control their neighbors. The struggle is ancient, and it continues.
Happy Passover and a blessed Easter to all who celebrate these holy days.
re Dostoevsky…people today who are eager to throw away freedom are not generally doing so for bread….they are motivated either by security or by a need for belonging. (‘Circle Dancing’, in Kundera’s phrase)
The search for security often leads to its opposite…
“To minimize suffering and to maximize security were natural and proper ends of society and Caesar. But then they became the only ends, somehow, and the only basis of law—a perversion. Inevitably, then, in seeking only them, we found only their opposites: maximum suffering and minimum security.”
–Walter Miller, A Canticle for Leibowitz
To be sure, freedom and liberty are apt values to consider on Passover. However, from having attended a seder and had it explained to me, I was struck by its emphasis on gratitude, specifically the Dayenu (“It Would Have Been Enough”) song:
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If He had brought us out from Egypt,
and had not carried out judgments against them
— Dayenu, it would have sufficed!
Di Da-yenu, Di Da-yenu, Di Da-yenu, Da-yenu, Da-yenu
If He had carried out judgments against them,
and not against their idols
— Dayenu, it would have sufficed!
Di Da-yenu, Di Da-yenu, Di Da-yenu, Da-yenu, Da-yenu
If He had destroyed their idols,
and had not smitten their first-born
— Dayenu, it would have sufficed!
Di Da-yenu, Di Da-yenu, Di Da-yenu, Da-yenu, Da-yenu
If He had smitten their first-born,
and had not given us their wealth
— Dayenu, it would have sufficed!
Di Da-yenu, Di Da-yenu, Di Da-yenu, Da-yenu, Da-yenu
If He had given us their wealth,
and had not split the sea for us
— Dayenu, it would have sufficed!
Di Da-yenu, Di Da-yenu, Di Da-yenu, Da-yenu, Da-yenu
If He had split the sea for us,
and had not taken us through it on dry land
— Dayenu, it would have sufficed!
Di Da-yenu, Di Da-yenu, Di Da-yenu, Da-yenu, Da-yenu
If He had taken us through the sea on dry land,
and had not drowned our oppressors in it
— Dayenu, it would have sufficed!
Di Da-yenu, Di Da-yenu, Di Da-yenu, Da-yenu, Da-yenu
If He had drowned our oppressors in it,
and had not supplied our needs in the desert for forty years
— Dayenu, it would have sufficed!
Di Da-yenu, Di Da-yenu, Di Da-yenu, Da-yenu, Da-yenu
If He had supplied our needs in the desert for forty years,
and had not fed us the manna
— Dayenu, it would have sufficed!
Di Da-yenu, Di Da-yenu, Di Da-yenu, Da-yenu, Da-yenu
If He had fed us the manna,
and had not given us the Shabbat
— Dayenu, it would have sufficed!
Di Da-yenu, Di Da-yenu, Di Da-yenu, Da-yenu, Da-yenu
If He had given us the Shabbat,
and had not brought us before Mount Sinai
— Dayenu, it would have sufficed!
Di Da-yenu, Di Da-yenu, Di Da-yenu, Da-yenu, Da-yenu
If He had brought us before Mount Sinai,
and had not given us the Torah
— Dayenu, it would have sufficed!
Di Da-yenu, Di Da-yenu, Di Da-yenu, Da-yenu, Da-yenu
If He had given us the Torah,
and had not brought us into the land of Israel
— Dayenu, it would have sufficed!
Di Da-yenu, Di Da-yenu, Di Da-yenu, Da-yenu, Da-yenu
If He had brought us into the land of Israel,
and not built for us the Holy Temple
— Dayenu, it would have sufficed!
Di Da-yenu, Di Da-yenu, Di Da-yenu, Da-yenu, Da-yenu
https://www.haggadot.com/clip/dayenu-lyrics-english
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Wiser folks than I have taught the importantce of gratitude in one’s life.
Here’s a hilarious and wonderful video of “Dayenu” being performed in multiple musical genres by the Maccabeats. I watch it at this time every year.
–The Maccabeats – Dayenu – Passover
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZgDNPGZ9Sg
Note for Gentiles: At Passover the custom is to leave a cup of wine at the table for Elijah and open the door for him to enter.
Spoiler for video: Elijah shows up!
I read an amusing piece by Jeff Dunetz, at Lidblog, about how poor old Moses gets no respect at Passover. A chair and a glass of wine for Elijah, but not for Moses, after all he did.
The tradition of opening the door during the Passover seder is associated with the infamous medieval Blood Libel that accused Jews of ritually using the blood of Gentile children in the making of matzah. The door was opened to make sure nobody was dumping any bodies on their doorstep.
The door is opened as a portion of Psalm 79 is recited:
“Pour out Your wrath upon the nations which do not acknowledge You, and on the kingdoms that do not proclaim Your Name. For they have devoured Jacob and destroyed his habitation. Pour forth Your fury upon them, and let Your burning anger overtake them. Pursue them in anger and destroy them from beneath the heavens of the Lord.”
“Passover acknowledges that freedom (and liberty, not exactly the same thing but related) is an exceedingly important human desire and need.” neo
I no longer accept that freedom and liberty are an unqualified “human desire and need”. As J.J. asserts, many people can’t handle the personal accountability that accompany freedom and liberty.
Many more people want a benevolent nanny state. Were it not so, the democrat party wouldn’t exist.
A cultural embrace of personal accountability and responsibility is the necessary foundation upon which freedom and liberty thrive societally.
It takes a high degree of maturity and “self-actualization” to fully embrace the personal responsibility that accompanies freedom and liberty.
And a happy freedom to you.
@ huxley > I love the Maccabeats, having discovered them a few years ago in this post:
From Andrea Widburg at Bookworm Room, in 2019.
https://www.bookwormroom.com/2019/04/20/president-trump-is-the-dayenu-president/
“No matter how imperfect Trump is, looking at his record of accomplishments, as to each one I say the Passover word “dayenu” — it would have been enough.”
A good response to the narratives dismissing our President as a do-nothing gadfly, or Putin stooge, or uniquely evil because Mueller said so.
I re-read the post and still think it’s one of her best.
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
C. S. Lewis
Kate:
Moses is explicitly excluded from the Passover table to emphasize that G-d alone directs the story and performs the miracles. Similarly, his burial place is unkown to prevent it becoming a shrine.
Trust in a higher power rather than awe of human heroes and tyrants is essential to the Exodus story – and to the Jewish concept of freedom.
Neo – happy Passover!
Thanks, Ben David. The piece I read was by an observant Jew who was having some fun, not a serious item. Your explanation makes sense.
A happy Passover to you.