Passover: Engraving Freedom in our Hearts
Rabbi Tom Samuels
In our Torah, we read about the tenth plague that God inflicted on the Egyptians, the killing of their firstborn. Immediately before the plague commenced, God paused the drama and relayed to Moses and to Aaron what seemed to be at best irrelevant information to the narrative:
Exodus 12:2
“This month will be for you the beginning of the months. It will be the first of the months of the year for you.”
The great Medieval commentator Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, France, 1040-1105) questions the placement of God’s declaration at this particular point in the Torah: Shouldn’t this declaration of the beginning of time be located at the beginning of the Torah rather than so deep in the weeds of the Exodus drama, asks Rashi?
Rashi
“The Torah should have started with, ‘This month will be for you…’, for this is the first commandment that was given to Israel.”
Rabbi Ovadia ben Jacob Sforno (Italy, 1475-1549) asks this very same question, and reveals a profoundly relevant insight into the placement of God's declaration about beginnings:
Rabbi Ovadia ben Jacob Sforno
“This month will be for you the beginning of the months…” From here on out the months will be yours, for you to do with them as you wish. In the days of slavery, your days were not your own. You had to work for others and do their will. That is why this will be the first of the months of the year for you: because in it you began your liberated existence.”
Perhaps, Rabbi David Kasher explains, Sfrono is telling us that that very same moment, right before the actual leaving the slavery of Egypt for the freedom of the desert, is indeed a new beginning for the Israelites, as a free People. “When you are a slave,” writes Rabbi Kasher, “in a sense, you do not exist in time, for your time belongs to someone else. Time, for the Children of Israel, really starts with the Exodus.”
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, May His Sacred Memory be for a Blessing, points out that although in Rabbinic literature the holiday of Passover is referred to as Zman Cheruteinu, the Time of our Freedom, the word Cheruteinu does not appear anywhere in all of Hebrew scripture. The closest definition of this word that we have is from its root, Charut, which means ‘to engrave,” which, on its surface has nothing to do with freedom.
Why then did the rabbis deem it necessary to invent a new word for freedom when the Bible already has the word Chofshi? And, what does engraving have to do with freedom?
Rabbi Sacks explains that when freedom is engraved in our hearts, in our very selves, as our defining ethos, as a Charut, that is the freedom that is eternal, sustainable, indelible. “That” Rabbi Sacks concludes “is the kind of freedom to which we are called as Jews and which we recall ourselves every Passover.”
Let us use that freedom first to say I’m proud and tall as Jews, and second to work for the freedom and justice of all.”
Chad Kasher v’Someyach, A Happy and Healthy Passover.
Rabbi Tom
Rabbi Tom Samuels
In our Torah, we read about the tenth plague that God inflicted on the Egyptians, the killing of their firstborn. Immediately before the plague commenced, God paused the drama and relayed to Moses and to Aaron what seemed to be at best irrelevant information to the narrative:
Exodus 12:2
“This month will be for you the beginning of the months. It will be the first of the months of the year for you.”
The great Medieval commentator Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, France, 1040-1105) questions the placement of God’s declaration at this particular point in the Torah: Shouldn’t this declaration of the beginning of time be located at the beginning of the Torah rather than so deep in the weeds of the Exodus drama, asks Rashi?
Rashi
“The Torah should have started with, ‘This month will be for you…’, for this is the first commandment that was given to Israel.”
Rabbi Ovadia ben Jacob Sforno (Italy, 1475-1549) asks this very same question, and reveals a profoundly relevant insight into the placement of God's declaration about beginnings:
Rabbi Ovadia ben Jacob Sforno
“This month will be for you the beginning of the months…” From here on out the months will be yours, for you to do with them as you wish. In the days of slavery, your days were not your own. You had to work for others and do their will. That is why this will be the first of the months of the year for you: because in it you began your liberated existence.”
Perhaps, Rabbi David Kasher explains, Sfrono is telling us that that very same moment, right before the actual leaving the slavery of Egypt for the freedom of the desert, is indeed a new beginning for the Israelites, as a free People. “When you are a slave,” writes Rabbi Kasher, “in a sense, you do not exist in time, for your time belongs to someone else. Time, for the Children of Israel, really starts with the Exodus.”
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, May His Sacred Memory be for a Blessing, points out that although in Rabbinic literature the holiday of Passover is referred to as Zman Cheruteinu, the Time of our Freedom, the word Cheruteinu does not appear anywhere in all of Hebrew scripture. The closest definition of this word that we have is from its root, Charut, which means ‘to engrave,” which, on its surface has nothing to do with freedom.
Why then did the rabbis deem it necessary to invent a new word for freedom when the Bible already has the word Chofshi? And, what does engraving have to do with freedom?
Rabbi Sacks explains that when freedom is engraved in our hearts, in our very selves, as our defining ethos, as a Charut, that is the freedom that is eternal, sustainable, indelible. “That” Rabbi Sacks concludes “is the kind of freedom to which we are called as Jews and which we recall ourselves every Passover.”
Let us use that freedom first to say I’m proud and tall as Jews, and second to work for the freedom and justice of all.”
Chad Kasher v’Someyach, A Happy and Healthy Passover.
Rabbi Tom
