Rabbi Haim Lifshitz

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PASSOVER
FESTIVAL OF FREEDOM – FESTIVAL OF FAITH

Translated from Hebrew by Dr. S. Nathan
l'ilui nishmat Esther bat Mordechai
l'ilui nishmat Mayer Hirsh ben Laibel

Human beings live with a fundamental sense of belonging and, simultaneously, with a fundamental sense of freedom; we swing back and forth between the two.  The sense of belonging requires freedom, and freedom without belonging has no meaning.  It contributes nothing to one’s sense of existence.  It is belonging that bestows existential meaning upon freedom.  Freedom as an existential sensation finds its expression in the opportunity for self-expression, through creative use of the full range of one’s qualitative abilities, which characterize what is original and unique about one’s self.  Such expression fills one's sense of existence with an experience of happiness.

Belonging without freedom deteriorates, attaching and enslaving itself to the survival stimuli of existence.  It is dragged down and conquered by survival’s automatic mechanisms.  The fight for survival brings with it existential fear and suffering.  One feels surrounded by dangers that threaten one's very existence.  In distress, one attempts to make use of one's emotional and rational qualities of character, in order to bring back one's sense of control over one's own existential situation.

However, since the fight for survival, with all its dangers included, forces one to relate to reality in a way that is devoid of free choice, one finds oneself totally preoccupied with fear and anxiety, which focus all of one's attention on the dangers and on the means of saving oneself.  One is left with no strength or leisure to express the main point of one's existence – to create.    

This situation is what is meant by enslavement to the forces of nature in Egypt.  In his distress, as mentioned, man attempts to use his quality in order to impose order on the natural system.  He has developed science, which investigates and attempts to uncover the mechanical laws that govern the mechanistic systems.  Law and order bestow a sense of calm and confidence, thanks to the knowledge that is given to one’s conscious awareness, and to one’s comprehension, and therefore also to one's ability to control.  This gives man the sense that he is master of himself and his existence.  

For some reason, man has not succeeded in closing the circle of his existence through law and order, despite his partial success in imposing order.  He calls deviations from law and order – merely temporary, random phenomena, in his confidence in the progress of knowledge, which will close all gaps, through the addition of more knowledge, more information about the laws of existence.

The Creator of the universe toys with human arrogance, revealing an inch while concealing two.  With every invention and discovery, man finds greater contradictions and a thicker fog, coming from directions he has not anticipated.  Thousands of years of investigation have not managed to bring healing to the distress of his existence.

The emotions developed the mystical track of inquiry, while rationality developed the scientific track.  The one uses its tools and the other uses its instruments.  They are as mutually exclusive as Jacob and Esau.  At times the emotion wins (during those times when knowledge faces a crisis) and at times the sense of confidence prevails, thanks to a new, “revolutionary” scientific discovery.  Then the cycle repeats itself, until the next crisis.

Emotion’s most effective tool is faith.  Rationality’s most effective tool is the happiness of creativity.  The most complete, mutually supportive merger between these two is the happiness of performing a mitzvah.

The Torah contains a methodology that guides man to bring about the perfect balance between emotion and rationality, creating the perfect sense of existence by causing belonging and freedom to complement one another, as the content within the container.  Belonging makes use of the power of faith in order to attach itself, to lean on a mechanism that is capable of offering a solid foundation, which is capable of promising a sense of existence.

As mentioned, one’s sense of existence vacillates between mysticism and science.  We see here that it is impossible to sever belonging from freedom.  Such severing would remind belonging of its tendency toward enslavement to the stimuli of the outside, which create existential fear and anxiety, which take over and seize control of all of man’s abilities and of his entire sense of existence, exploiting all his capabilities, which are wasted on self-preservation.  Such was the slavery in Egypt.

Freedom without belonging severs one from the sense of existence utterly.  It gives one the sense of existing in a vacuum, with an utter and absolute lack of control, in which all things are in a state of war.  This creates the fear of the unknown.  All too soon, such temporary freedom becomes enslavement, to the first available master, as a drowning man grasps at a straw.

Rationality and Emotion – Seeking a Merger
Going forth from slavery into freedom means exchanging the flimsy and rickety support of nature for Godly law and order.  “I am God…Who brought you forth from the land of Egypt, from the slave house.”  This is a godly system, which demands enslavement through choice that flows from the qualitative inner space of the self.  This system enables choice, meaning that it is a system that grants an opportunity for the qualities of the self to express themselves and to create.  This proves the need for the absolute attachment and merger between belonging and freedom.

Here we discover new meaning in the opening verse of the Ten Commandments.  Until now we had understood that the obligation to accept the Torah was incumbent upon us because God had redeemed us from enslavement and troubles, and therefore we are obligated to accept enslavement to Him.  Now we understand this verse in a new light: Here is not merely a moral imperative, but rather a substantive imperative.  Enslavement to God is not an enslavement that binds and fetters and wastes the qualities of the self.  Rather, enslavement to Torah and commandments is the sole and single path to freedom.  

This is an enslavement that is a blessing: It activates and preserves the freedom of creativity.  It encompasses both the journey and the spiritual goal.  Journey and destination – a journey that is, in itself, the destination.  Here is a means that is also an end, and this is the meaning of Dayenu, the hymn of the Passover Haggadah, “That In Itself Would Have Been Enough For Us,”

It is true that every single stage of the redemption, about which we sing, “that [stage] in itself would have been enough for us,” was meant to lead to the following stage, ultimately reaching the point of a full and closed circle.  However, the quality of the Godly journey is not only measured – and its benefits not only attained – at the final closing of the process.  Rather, every stage in itself is capable of bringing redemption and liberation from the enslaving survival mechanism.  The moment man grabs hold of the stage that he is in need of at that moment for the creative expression of his qualitative self, then and there he has already gone forth from an enslaving mechanism to a liberating mechanism.

Faith is the sense of belonging that arouses freedom to express the self, and is therefore capable of imbuing existential confidence and the existential joy of creativity.

“What is this worship to you?” asks the wicked son.  What is there in the effort you invest in doing the commandments, that is capable of substituting for the sense of belonging that enslaves one to the mechanism of survival?

Dayenu: “That In Itself Would Have Been Enough For us.”  “If He had only given…[that stage[] but had not given” the stage that followed…  It seems that what He gave, creates a need, and opens the appetite, and invites what comes in its wake.  Need creates lack, which causes hunger, the suffering of hunger.  As a rule, the ability to appreciate and to enjoy and to extract benefit from the good only comes after passing through the experience of distress caused by lack.  The road to good passes through bad.  This is what is meant by: “And had He not given us…”