At least once in the national memory of a people, there has to be imprinted not just the historical reality of being liberated, but the constant idea that we are free.
What God gave us at the Exodus was the possibility of ever-renewable freedom. Put in the simplest possible terms, in whatever situation one finds oneself in life–-financial, professional, existential – one need not be stuck.
Such is the import of the word “Mitzrayim,” which, as many commentaries point out, is related to metzarim, meaning a “narrow or constricted place.” To live in the Egypt of our daily lives often is to feel fenced in, without any hope for inner release. The Exodus instructs us that all of life is a choice to be free. God’s liberation is not merely directed at the Israelites, but at each individual heart at the seder table, for the time comes when one realizes that there’s a certain kind of life that is unavoidable if not for the surrender to God and a commitment to the spiritual path.
It’s not that another kind of life is a bad life or necessarily an empty one. Such a life may be filled with many things, but inevitably the missing piece is often the sense that something matters beyond what a human being does. From a chillingly material perspective, what humans make, what we believe in, what we value, what we live for, what we die for – that’s all there is or seems to be. But the Jewish sequence is quite different, for freedom from Egypt is followed by revelation at Sinai, redeeming Jews from one illusion only: the idea that the standard of human morality is the final ground of existence.
That is the only thing God really freed us from in Mitzrayim. Jews were enslaved after that – they were tortured and gassed and shot and exterminated. They were persecuted and harassed and exiled and ridiculed. But never again were we reduced to a life in which the transcendent was missing, where the spiritual life, the one beyond tangible measure, was not at the centre of our existence. And quite frankly, that has made all the difference in Jewish history. It is to that point that the seder speaks, and that idea represents our salvation.
It would be telling is one were to conduct an on-the-street poll and ask people what they would most desire in life. Answers such as happiness, wealth, romantic love and success would likely pour in. One wonders whether the idea of living for the highest would crack the top 20.
Some of us old enough to remember being enthralled by the signature line of Kris Kristofferson’s song Me and Bobby McGee –“Freedom’s just another name for nothing left to lose”– must reckon with how this piece of folk wisdom ends up being the antithesis of the Pesach message. For Jews everywhere, freedom must be appreciated as precisely the opportunity to value that which must never be lost.