Do we just define freedom as “freedom from” or do we recognize another dimension, of “freedom to”?  If we are free of shackles ourselves, if our basic needs are met and we have the right to speak our minds… is it not our obligation to …use our freedoms to … create freedom for others? 

…These are precisely the issues raised during the Passover holiday.  We gather to celebrate our own freedom, our escape from Pharoah, but then we invoke all who are hungry and invite them to eat.  We suggest that we are not free unless we find a way to ensure that they, too, are free from want.  We remind ourselves – in this Passover service and throughout our texts – that it is precisely because we know the evils of slavery, the burden of hunger, and the dangers of oppression that we must work to ensure that others are able to realize their own freedom.  

What are we obligated to do?  We need to look to ourselves, to recognize that we too often play the role of Pharoah in the lives of others – as individuals by not welcoming those different than ourselves; as a community by not extending ourselves to the impoverished and hungry; as a people by not honoring other cultures and faiths as we would hope to be honored


haggadah Section: -- Exodus Story
Source: Ruth W. Messinger, American Jewish World Service (www.ajws.org)