Welcome back to Torah Thoughts from Adas Israel the Jewish Congregation of Northern Iowa, based in Mason City. Thank you for coming by for a quick read.
Passover Thoughts
The first two days of Pesach are full holidays as are the final two days. That Passover started on Shabbat and now ends after Shabbat on Saturday evening means that food and everything we do to prepare for the Sabbath has to take place on Thursday. It has been a whirlwind to say the least.
A quick thank you to everyone who came to our Community Seder and then on Shabbat to our Midrash ass we learned even more about the laws and customs of Passover. As always it was great to be with everyone and to study and learn. Several folks were absent as Pesach collided with Good Friday.
Teach Your Children
What comes of a revolution? So often we find that those who were oppressors are overthrown by the oppressed through some violent activity only to, in time, become the oppressors. The faces change but the suffering remains. We've seen it hundreds of times in hundreds of places. So how do you insure that a revolution toward freedom does not repeat that same system?
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l wrote an interesting piece on the topic that I'll share with you here.
The books of Exodus and Deuteronomy take a different route altogether. It’s astonishing how, reflecting on the Israelites’ journey from
slavery to freedom, Moses keeps returning to one subject above all others: how we teach our children. “When your children ask you this, you should answer them that.” “Teach your child on that day.” “Say to your child ...” Four times Moses speaks about the duty of parents to educate their children, handing on to them their people’s story until it becomes their own.
That’s what we do each year on Passover as we gather in our extended families to re-enact the night long ago when our ancestors readied themselves to leave Egypt and begin the long walk to freedom. It’s a remarkable ceremony, the oldest continuously observed religious ritual in the world, going back thousands of years. We still eat the matzah, the dry unleavened “bread of affliction,” and taste the maror, the “bitter herbs” of slavery. And children are still at the heart of this celebration. For we can only tell the story in response to questions asked by a child. That’s why, for many of us, our earliest Jewish memory is of asking the “four questions,” beginning with “Why is this night different?” We remain faithful to Moses’ mandate: first teach the children.
The world we build tomorrow is born in the stories we tell our children today. Politics moves the pieces. Education changes the game. If you want a free society, teach your children what oppression tastes like. Tell them how many miracles it takes to get from here to there. Above all, encourage them to ask questions. Teach them to think for themselves. Get them to continue the heritage not through blind obedience – the world’s worst preparation for liberty – but through active, challenging conversation across the generations. That’s how we learned, as children, about the long walk to freedom. It’s how we came to take our ancestors’ story as our own.
Amid all the talk about the challenges facing the world in the twenty first century – climate change, the global economy, political turmoil, the impact of the new technology – far too little is said or thought about education, and even when it is, it focuses on the wrong things, such as technical skills. Education is the single most important determinant of the future of the human race, and what and how we teach our children is the most important decision we can make.
We have to teach our children that freedom only comes when you respect the freedom of others, that it involves responsibilities as well as rights and that it means making sacrifices for the common good. G-d, the supreme power, intervened in history long ago to help the supremely powerless, a nation of slaves, and ever since, His work must be ours. Nor can we teach these things without giving children the space to ask, question and challenge, thereby learning the dignity of dissent, itself one of the elements of freedom.
Liberty is born not on the battlefield but in homes, schools and houses of study. That is the message of the world’s oldest ritual, Passover, and its force remains undiminished today.
Powerful Message
What Rabbi Lord Sacks wrote is so powerful...especially today when there are politicians demanding that our children not be called upon to ask questions about our past and our present. I was fortunate to share a table with Rabbi Sacks when he was the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Commonwealth. It was one of the high points of my trip and I credit Rabbi Lord Sacks for helping me dig deeper into our shared faith. He did that not always by teaching but also by asking questions. We can learn much by simply asking.
Good Yom Tov and Shabbat Shalom!
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