Do we just define freedom as “freedom from” or do we recognize another dimension, of “freedom to”? If we are free of shackles ourselves, if our basic needs are met and we have the right to speak our minds… is it not our obligation to …use our freedoms to … create freedom for others?
…These are precisely the issues raised during the Passover holiday. We gather to celebrate our own freedom, our escape from Pharoah, but then we invoke all who are hungry and invite them to eat. We suggest that we are not free unless we find a way to ensure that they, too, are free from want. We remind ourselves – in this Passover service and throughout our texts – that it is precisely because we know the evils of slavery, the burden of hunger, and the dangers of oppression that we must work to ensure that others are able to realize their own freedom.
What are we obligated to do? We need to look to ourselves, to recognize that we too often play the role of Pharoah in the lives of others – as individuals by not welcoming those different than ourselves; as a community by not extending ourselves to the impoverished and hungry; as a people by not honoring other cultures and faiths as we would hope to be honored
Socrates (469399 B.C.E), the great Greek philosopher and mentor of Plato, was in the habit of asking disconcerting questions. To this day, persistent questioning in search of clarity is known as the Socratic method. For this habit, among other things, he was put on trial by the Athenians, accused of ‘corrupting the young,’ and sentenced to death. Nothing could be less like Judaism, in which teaching the young to ask questions is an essential feature of Pesach, so much so that the Haggadah – the narration – must be in response to a question asked by a child.
In Judaism, to be without questions is not a sign of faith, but of lack of depth. ‘As for the child who does not know how to ask, you must begin to teach him how.”…
The heroes of our faith asked questions of God, and the greater the prophet, the harder the question….
There are three conditions for asking a Jewish question. The first is that we seek genuinely to learn – not to doubt, ridicule, dismiss, reject. That’s what the ‘wicked son’ of the Haggadah does: ask not out of a desire to understand but as a prelude to walking away. Second is that we accept limits to our understanding… Third is that we learn by living and understand by doing…
As we acknowledge this moment of renewal, what is new in your life since we celebrated last year?
Do we just define freedom as “freedom from” or do we recognize another dimension, of “freedom to”? If we are free of shackles ourselves, if our basic needs are met and we have the right to speak our minds… is it not our obligation to …use our freedoms to … create freedom for others?
…These are precisely the issues raised during the Passover holiday. We gather to celebrate our own freedom, our escape from Pharoah, but then we invoke all who are hungry and invite them to eat. We suggest that we are not free unless we find a way to ensure that they, too, are free from want. We remind ourselves – in this Passover service and throughout our texts – that it is precisely because we know the evils of slavery, the burden of hunger, and the dangers of oppression that we must work to ensure that others are able to realize their own freedom.
What are we obligated to do? We need to look to ourselves, to recognize that we too often play the role of Pharoah in the lives of others – as individuals by not welcoming those different than ourselves; as a community by not extending ourselves to the impoverished and hungry; as a people by not honoring other cultures and faiths as we would hope to be honored
Socrates (469399 B.C.E), the great Greek philosopher and mentor of Plato, was in the habit of asking disconcerting questions. To this day, persistent questioning in search of clarity is known as the Socratic method. For this habit, among other things, he was put on trial by the Athenians, accused of ‘corrupting the young,’ and sentenced to death. Nothing could be less like Judaism, in which teaching the young to ask questions is an essential feature of Pesach, so much so that the Haggadah – the narration – must be in response to a question asked by a child.
In Judaism, to be without questions is not a sign of faith, but of lack of depth. ‘As for the child who does not know how to ask, you must begin to teach him how.”…
The heroes of our faith asked questions of God, and the greater the prophet, the harder the question….
There are three conditions for asking a Jewish question. The first is that we seek genuinely to learn – not to doubt, ridicule, dismiss, reject. That’s what the ‘wicked son’ of the Haggadah does: ask not out of a desire to understand but as a prelude to walking away. Second is that we accept limits to our understanding… Third is that we learn by living and understand by doing…
As we acknowledge this moment of renewal, what is new in your life since we celebrated last year?
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