All Prisoners, All Free

#BlogExodus: Freedom

I originally wrote a version of this post for the April 2012 Hebrew Union Congregation Temple Topics, our monthly bulletin.

Image found at theyeshivaworld.com

I have never led a Passover Seder in a prison, but each spring, as we begin our extensive preparations for the holiday, I find myself wondering: what would that be like? I consider the question with an uncomfortable curiosity, a combination of longing and aversion.

Passover is our festival of freedom, our celebration of Israel’s storied redemption from slavery in Egypt. In every generation, we read in the Haggadah, our guide to the Seder, each of us must feel as if we, personally, had come out of Egypt. As if we ourselves tasted the sweetness of liberation after long oppression. In the traditional text we recite:

Therefore, let us rejoice

At the wonder of our deliverance

From bondage to freedom,

From agony to joy,

From mourning to festivity,

From darkness to light,

From servitude to redemption.[1]

And yet, the Seder also reads: “Now we are all still in bonds. Next year may all be free.”[2] 

I wonder how the first passage might sound to a convict in prison, a homeless person, a political captive, anyone whose existence is dominated by oppression, loss, or suffering.

And I wonder how the second text is heard by those of us whose existence is dominated by blessing: physical comforts, political freedom, the love of family and friends.

My first thoughts always go to how painfully our traditional words of celebration and gratitude must prick those who find themselves in bitter circumstances, and to how unthinkingly the formulaic words of persistent bondage, of incomplete redemption, must roll off the tongues of those whose lives are sweet.

Yet I know it is not necessarily so. I know there are people in the most terrible of circumstances who, like Viktor Frankl in the Nazi concentration camps, still maintain the inviolability of ''the last of the human freedoms, to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.''[3] And I know there are those who, in the midst of personal well-being, maintain a consciousness of our broken world, an appreciation of the idea that none of us is redeemed, none of us truly, wholly free, until all are free.

Might we aspire simultaneously to both of these truths? That in the midst of oppression, we maintain a certain freedom, to transform the future and change our lives; and that in the midst of blessing, we maintain a sense of our responsibility for those less blessed? This year, when we conclude our Seder with the traditional cry, “Next year in Jerusalem!”—next year in the messianic age of peace and justice, next year may we be free, redeemed from every Egypt—might our words should truly reflect our intentions (if not our expectations), and guide our future actions? May it be so, at all of our Seders, wherever they may be.

Image from Teshuvafilm's Blog

In the mean time, I intend to find out whether any Mississippi prisoners are in need of an in-house Seder this year.  

This post is part of #BlogExodus, a pre-Passover initiative started by rabbi, mom, & friend Imabima. To see more blog postings on Passover themes, follow #BlogExodus on Twitter.

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[1] Translation from BaskinHaggadah, Revised Edition, CCAR 1994.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

You Don't Know Anything!

#BlogExodus: Learning and Teaching

How did I never make the connection before? We make such a fuss about the Passover Seder being an important, entertaining, but most of all educational event for the children...why? Because we want to transmit the essence and implications of its story to the next generation? Sure, that, too.

But as I reflect on the relationship between teaching and learning, on the hackneyed but inescapable truth that we teach in order to learn, that our students are our best teachers, well, really, why this hullaballoo over the Passover Seder? 

Why else?  It's because this is the lesson we adults most need to learn, ourselves. Think about it: what could be harder than transforming an experience of slavery into a source of strength and integrity and compassion; of internalizing qualities like humility, gratitude, and hope; of freeing ourselves and one another from the shackles that limit and distort us; of bearing up under the responsibilities of freedom? There's work enough for a lifetime-and-a-half.

I've been teaching two different Introduction to Judaism classes this year, nearly simultaneously: one at a synagogue, another at a liberal arts college. You know, the kind of course where each session's topic could become a year-long course. Thanks to my students and their need for a nodding acquaintance with some three-to-five thousand years of Jewish history (depending on where you start counting), I can now reel off a lot more dates in connection with specific historical events than I could have a month ago. I also have a much better idea of how I might teach all of Jewish history in an hour, next time. 

It's funny. Teaching can simultaneously humble us, highlighting all the things we don't know (or have forgotten); and build our confidence, reminding us of how much more we do know than when we first began learning.

This week, in a session on Israel and Zionism, one of my students asked, "What is the definition of Zionism?" My first thought was, "OMG! What is the definition of Zionism?" followed immediately by, "Duh! How could I have not looked that up before tonight's class?" But once I was through with my ritual moment of panic and self-flagellation, I realized that I actually had an answer, and that while it might not match the dictionary definition (though it came fairly close!), it was a legitimate and more nuanced definition than Merriam-Webster could offer (though perhaps not quite as nuanced as this definition). Oh, right. I'm a rabbi. I do know something about this stuff.

My older daughter, all of five years and eight months, has recently taken, from time to time, to shouting at her younger sister (almost four years old), "YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT LIFE!" My husband told me last night that he's decided to have a talk with our older girl exploring what exactly she knows about life and whether she know what's most important in life (like, say, kindness to her sister). Which led to a rousing, if brief (due to practical considerations, not for lack of material), conversation about what we think is most important in life. When we teach, we are required to both review and push the boundaries of what we know.

Thank God, truly, for our students, our children. Think of all the information and insights we'd never gain without them, the blind spots we'd never even know we have, the convictions we might never discover in our own hearts. The Passover Seders we might not fuss over, were it not for them.

This post is part of a Passover project, #BlogExodus, the brainchild of ImaBima.