Servitude to Service: A Pesach Message

MORE than 3000 years ago at this time of year, the People of Israel rose up, severed the bonds of their oppression and marched out of Egypt. In doing so, they created a story that even today reverberates in the ears of humanity.

People all over the world continue to feel and experience the struggle of the people of Israel. From Latin America to Europe, from North America to the Middle East and Asia, oppressed peoples have experienced the Exodus in their own way. Here Pharoah's state is a colonial regime, there a domestic system of legalized injustice; here Moses is a leader who speaks with God, there a representative assembly that speaks for the people. Everywhere, the people are hopeful and stubborn, downtrodden and then ennobled.

What distinguishes the Exodus as such a powerful metaphor is not simply the courage of the Israelites in the face of the world's mightiest empire. Nor is it only the fiery spirit of revolt. Rather, it is the unique sense of purpose with which the Israelites spoke out not only for the people but for their God: Let my people go that they may serve Me. The Israelites sought liberty not to do as they might please, but to transform their servitude into freely given service to their God.

The Israelites' liberation was not completed when the last Egyptian gave up his pursuit. Free and independent, the people made a covenent with their God and with each other, a compact of morality and equity. They tried to capture the spirit of liberation, the excitement of freedom and to weave them into the fabric of everyday society.

Passover, the annual retelling of the Exodus story, is drawing to a close. In the final days, all of us--Jew and non-Jew alike--who can still hear the echoes of the parting sea must attempt to apply the inspirational Exodus tale to our own lives and our own world.

HOW can one celebrate freedom when so much of our own society, let alone the world, is unfree? At the Seder, the commemorative meal that begins Passover, we recognize the existence of human bondage and say early in the evening: This year we are slaves, next year may we be free.

The Seder itself demonstrates the tension between freedom achieved and freedom still to be attained. Conceived at a time when the Jews were ruled throughout the West by Rome, the Seder was a meal based on the feasts of the ruling aristocracy--a forceful, concrete expression of a lust for freedom. Drinking the wine of joy and tasting the bitter herbs of slavery, we experience both the freedom and the unfreedom around us. Most importantly, we repeat aloud our dedication to furthering the struggle.

Passover impels us to look outward, at social conditions and how they must change. At the same time, Passover also asks us to look inward. "In each and every generation, we must try to experience personally the Exodus from Egypt"--so we have said as the holiday began. To experience the Exodus is to know what suffering and deprivation are, to understand that autonomy--not domination--is the true opposite of slavery. Retelling the Exodus helps us to recapture sensitivities which we may not have learned from our own experience.

When we find ourselves in positions of power--as members of the advantaged middle-class, as friends or parents or spouses, as forces in society--we must respect the needs, privileges and concerns of those over whom we have authority. Their welfare, their hearts, their needs, their hopes--all these must be our concerns as well.

For some, this message compels political or social activism. This is the same activism which will not sit still after a successful sea crossing, but must return and help the rest across. For others, this moral message impels a scrupulous attention to the hundreds of choices that confront us each day: whether to spend our moments idly or in service to others and to higher goals, whether to see others simply as part of the background or instead as people who crossed the sea to our left and to our right.

Passover is not just about memory and affirmation; it is about recapturing the moment we became free and restoring freedom's spark to our souls. At this time of year, we pause to wet our feet in the waters of the possibilty of ethical progress. If the generation that was liberated from Egypt could visit us today, they might ask what we have done with our freedom. Are we treating each other justly? Are we continually building a society that supports interpersonal concern and propels each of us toward higher ends?

The message of Passover is that we must push ourselves towards the day when we will be able to look them in the eyes and answer "yes."

Jonathan S. Savett '89-'90 is a jormer Chair of Harvard-Radcliffe Hillel.