5 minute read
To Be Free We Must Embrace Who We Are
April 2024
By Rabbi Michael Wolk, Temple Israel
After hundreds of years of slavery in Egypt, it was finally time for our ancestors, the earliest Jewish people to go free. There was one night left to be spent in Egypt before they could march out of the country unstopped by Pharaoh and his brutal taskmasters. But there was one catch — the Jewish people would have to show God that they truly wanted to be free. Of course they didn’t want to be slaves anymore, but were they ready to stand on their own as free people? God puts them to the test. Several days in advance each Jewish family was to select a lamb and on the evening before going free, they were to slaughter the lamb as a sacrifice to God and then gather with their families to eat a celebratory meal. Food has always been important for Jews even way back then, but there was one more absolutely critical step. Before nightfall each Jewish family had to paint the doorposts of their home with the blood of lamb. This sign would indicate to God which homes were Jewish homes as God came through the land and struck down the Egyptian first born.
Someone reading the familiar Passover story for the first time might ask if God really needs a sign to help identify the Jewish homes. If God is powerful enough to send ten plagues and to humble the most mighty human ruler in the world, why doesn’t God know where the Jewish people live? The answer, I believe, is that the blood really served to remind the people inside the home to say “I am Jewish.” After hundreds of years of persecution and attempted genocide, it might have been easier for the Jews of Egypt just to decide that they wanted nothing more than to be regular Egyptians. They would drop the customs that made them unique and hope that within a few generations their grandchildren would be indistinguishable as the descendants of Jacob’s family who had migrated from Canaan to Egypt during a great famine.
So God challenges them at this moment. “If you want to be free,” God is saying, “you need to lean into the things that make you unique and you need to be willing to stand up and share them. Only once you have affirmed who you are can you aim to reach your potential.” It’s a powerful message and the Jews who are willing to mark their doors are the people who leave Egypt the next morning.
This is a story that happened a very long time ago, but it is also a story that takes place on a regular basis for American Jews in 2024. The Hebrew word for “doorpost” is “mezuzah” and today are supposed to mark our doorposts not with blood, but rather with the words of the Shema that both remind us of who we are when we enter our homes and shares that identity with anyone who sees our doors. Likewise, Egypt was a physical place, but it is also a spiritual place. The Hebrew word for “Egypt” is “mitzrayim” and literally means “the constricted place.” In every generation Jews have been enslaved in different constricted places where we have felt the pressure to give up our identities and the things that make us unique.
This year we are all constricted because of the terrorist attacks of October 7 and because of the antisemitism that has become all too common in response to Israel’s war against Hamas. Like many of the Jews in Egypt, there are many Jews today who wonder if it is safe to mark the mezuzot of their homes and proclaim their Jewish identity. It is easy to feel fear, but Jews have never survived difficult situations by hiding. Rather we learn from Passover that to be free, we must embrace who we are and tell everyone else that we are here. As a rabbi in the south, I’ve found that this means speaking to many school and church groups who are curious, but know little about their Jewish neighbors even though we live side by side. More powerful that one time talks with a rabbi however, is the one on one contact that each of us has with our neighbors. To be free in our world means not only to proudly display mezuzot on our doors where our neighbors can see them, but also to share with our friends how personal the attacks on Israel are to us and how the acts of antisemitism committed here in the United States affect our lives and return us to that constricted place.
Passover should be a fun and enjoyable holiday filled with good food, family, and friends, but it’s also the time when we ask ourselves if we are doing what we need to do to experience the freedom that God gave our ancestors in Egypt.
