Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel

Year 3 Day 179

“It is time for the white man to strive for self-emancipation, to set himself free of bigotry, to stop being a slave to wholesale contempt, a passive recipient of slander” (Insecurity of Freedom pg 87-88)

We begin the celebration of liberation from Egypt tomorrow evening. The promises God makes to us in Exodus Chapter 6 have yet to be fulfilled. Each year, we remember we were slaves in Egypt and the slavery was not just being under the thumb of the Egyptians, it was also our inner slaveries which demeaned our humanity. The emancipation from Egypt, much like the Emancipation Proclamation in America dealt only with the burdens put upon us from ‘outsiders’, not the inner slaveries of our minds and emotions. This was a promise that God made to us by saying: “I will rid you of their slaveries, I will redeem you…” We, unfortunately, have not accepted this promise, we have not allowed ourselves to be rid of these inner slaveries, we have rejected being redeemed!

Rabbi Heschel’s words from 1963 are as poignant today as they were then. Immersing myself in them, especially on the eve of Passover, causes me to ask myself: how can I “strive for self-emancipation” a little more this year, how can I set myself a little freer this year? The answer lies, I believe, in the words above. In the Haggadah, the book used for the Passover celebration, we are told “in every generation, we are to see ourselves as if we too had been brought out of Egypt.” Engaging in this direction, gratitude for being brought out of Egypt is usually the first experience. I would challenge this, however, if we are to “strive for self-emancipation, we first have to name the slaveries we are still caught up in. We have to look inside of ourselves and name the narrow places we still dwell in, both in our hearts and our minds. We have to commit to “get a new pair of glasses” so our vision is fresh and we see with 20/20 ‘eyesight’ how our inner life is still caught up in Egypt, how we have refused, been unable to allow ourselves to be redeemed by a power greater than ourselves, by our communities, by our connection to the spirit of the universe.

Emancipation is liberation, not freedom. Strive is not achieving, it is the process of “making great efforts to achieve” and “fighting vigorously” to achieve. Our problem today, as it was in 1963, as it has been throughout the millennia, is we are not “fighting vigorously” nor “making great efforts” to liberate ourselves from the narrow places of seeking power, prestige, wealth, of our inner slaveries and our self-deceptions, of our buying into the deceptions of another(s) and the false belief we are free to do as we choose. Liberation is a “release” from the prisons we are in, it is a “setting free” of the bonds and chains that tie us to old ideas, to seeing the world through the lens of fear and despair. We are not free when we leave Egypt, according to many commentaries on the Bible. All of us did not leave Egypt when we had the opportunity, according to one of the many ways of reading the Bible, the call of Moses to Pharaoh: “Let My people go” was not totally fulfilled at the time nor has it been fulfilled up to today. The “white man” seems to incapable of striving for “self-emancipation” and, unfortunately, most other people seem to be falling short in this exercise as well.

As part of the daily prayer service each day, we recite a passage reminding ourselves that the fringes we wear or don’t wear are to remind us of being liberated from Egypt as a people, being emancipated from the harsh labors of building pyramids, of being under fed, of being seem as ‘the other’, of being ridiculed and debased for our skin color, our religious beliefs, our ethnicity, etc. Yet, so many Jews just read these words and don’t reflect on the “self-emancipation” they and we need! At the Passover Seder, we go through the Haggadah and give great commentaries and new ideas on different passages, we just don’t seem to be able to spend time talking about the “self-emancipation” we need this year, the narrow places that are so constricting we feel the urgency, finally, to leave them. Speaking of them gives voice to our struggles, it gives people the opportunity to seek help in their “fighting vigorously” to get out of these boxes we find ourselves in. Watching Alex Edelman’s “Just for Us” comedy special on Max is a treat and a lesson. As the Haggadah says, “in every generation they rise up to destroy us”, and while this is about the Jewish people, it also can be taken as a call to our inner life. Each year, in every generation, there are people on both the far right and the far left, who call for the destruction of the Jews, blaming us for the ills of society. Yet, each year, as I Immerse myself in Rabbi Heschel’s words above, we have to be aware of the inner slaveries, the inner prejudices that seek to destroy our spirits, our connections, our passion and purpose.

I have struggled for “self-emancipation” all my life. For 20+ years, I was unable to realize how deeply ensconced I was in my own inner slaveries of ego, less than, fighting ghosts, digging myself deeper and deeper into a spiritual hole that my had my actions go against everything I believed in. Then I was liberated when I was arrested in 1986! How strange this sounds and how true it is. Each year at Passover, I commit to leave a slavery-usually the same one or one similar to the first one-fear of being rejected, being seen as irrelevant. I have named this slavery as anger, impatience, etc; yet Rabbi Heschel’s words above have given me a new light to see inside myself. I commit to leave this narrow place because it is something I have no control over, I have been and will be rejected and I am still standing. I have been seen as and called irrelevant by people I trusted and served and I am still writing and contributing. I have allowed myself to be dependent on another’s opinion for too long. This is the liberation I seek this year. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark