The Jewish festival of Passover, which starts at sunset tonight, is best described as a celebration of optimism. No matter how dark the days in which we live, we look back to a time when God liberated us from the slavery to the Egyptians. When we say the words ‘next year in Jerusalem’, we look forward to a time when we will all be a free people and the land of Israel is an independent state in which we can be all types of Jews, with access to all our holy places and appropriate practices restored.
But as we prepare to do this, it pays to give some thought to how some people interpret the story of freed slaves, some of whom had been so broken down that they accepted their servitude, and consider why people ran from Pharaoh into the desert. It may not be what your Rabbi is telling you it is.
Although re-interpreting the Passover story has been a feature of Judaism throughout the ages, some modern Left wing Rabbonim try to put a socialist spin on the Passover story in their attempts to tie it to modern concerns. This strikes me as wrong. It’s not wrong to campaign against things that you see as social ills, but it is wrong to try to make the Passover story into something that it is not. Passover is not about socialism or whatever is the modish concern of the left this week, it’s about freedom.
Neither the Passover story, nor the Torah itself, is a Left wing tale or a Left wing document, and we need to face those facts. If people want to support far Left causes then they can; in a free society people are even free to advocate those things such as socialism, which are patently unfree, However people need to be aware that these things are not why the ancient Israelites ran from Pharaoh.
The Israelite slaves who upped sticks, fled the cities of Egypt and crossed the Sea of Reeds, with the armies of Pharaoh at their backs, didn’t just flee from something, they fled to something; a vague concept of freedom in a land of their own. These beaten and abused slaves, who had dwelt in the land of Egypt for several centuries, knew in their hearts that freedom was better than slavery and that is the lodestone that they followed.
The ancient Israelites did not flee from Egypt for any of the following reasons: socialism, communism, ‘social justice’ (merely another way of saying socialism), LGBTQI rights, voluntary euthanasia, a two state solution in the Middle East, nuclear disarmament, feminism, global warming, the welfare state or whatever is this month’s leftist flavour of the month. The ancient Israelites ran for freedom to be themselves, and when they found that absolute freedom was impossible and led to anarchy, they settled for freedom under law.
So if in the run up to Passover, or during the festival, your rabbi or other service leader tries to tell you that because the ancient Israelites ran from Pharoah’s enslavement therefore we should join campaigns that are the lefty flavour of the month, then ask him or her to point out where it says this in the Passover story in the Torah or the commentaries? I can guarantee that socialism will not be mentioned in either the Passover story or anywhere else in the Torah.
The ancient slaves who became the Israelite nation had no other goal than freedom to be themselves in their own land. They did not flee Egypt in order to be enslaved again by the authoritarian doctrines of social justice, socialism or communism; these things are the antithesis of freedom. To try to overlay these appalling, restrictive and freedom-strangling ideologies onto the Passover story is dishonesty bordering on blasphemy and does a grave disservice to those ancient Israelites, who now sleep in the dust, who fled the real oppression of Pharaoh’s slavery.
Chag Sameach to everyone who is celebrating Passover. I’d like to wish all my Jewish readers a happy and kosher Passover. Next year in Jerusalem, next year freedom.
