Passover - From Slavery to Freedom
As the first days of another Passover conclude with the echoes of "Once we were slaves and now we are free" and "Next year in Jerusalem" recited at the Seder nights ringing in our ears, we know that freedom is a lot more than being able to board a plane and fly off to Jerusalem. Slavery did not end with the fall of Pharaoh. Since then we have become slaves again, lived under the rule of iron-fisted tyrants and forgotten what the very idea of freedom means. And that will likely happen again and again until the age of oppression ends. What is this freedom that we gained with the fall of a Pharaoh, his drowning armies, and the last sight of his pyramids? Freedom, like slavery, is as much a state of mind as a state of being. It is possible to be legally free, yet to have no freedom of action whatsoever. And it is possible to be legally a slave and yet to be free in defiance of those restrictions. External coercion alone does not make a man free or slave. Slavery, as all