REsources for Living
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The Passover story is, of course, a story about freedom. It’s the story of how the Israelites went from being slaves in Egypt to being free people with a land and a religion of their own. But I wonder when exactly in the story it is that the Hebrew people finally become free.
Does their freedom start when Moses comes to them and says that God has sent him to help them out of bondage? Does it begin when the plagues make them think that Moses might be right, and that God really does want them to be free? Are they free when Pharaoh finally says that they can go? Or is it when they make the choice to actually leave, rushing out of the life they’ve always known without even taking time to let the bread for the journey rise?
Are they really free when they set out from Egypt, even with Pharaoh’s army following after them? Maybe their freedom starts on the edge of the Red Sea, when they look at the water and try to imagine any way that they might get across.
The Bible says that Moses raised his staff and a great wind parted the waters. But there’s a famous midrash, a commentary on the Bible, which says that the water opened up not when Moses raised his staff, but when the first person, truly believing that the crossing was possible, actually took that first step into the unknown. Did a moment of courage and faith make that person free? Did it bring freedom to the whole Hebrew band?
Maybe their freedom came when they actually made it across the sea and Pharaoh’s army did not. That could have been the point at which the Hebrews were really able to imagine themselves as free people, rather than slaves who were running away from their master. Maybe they started to feel free as Miriam sang a song of celebration on the far side of the Red Sea, after they had literally and figuratively crossed over.
But really, their journey had only started at that point. It would make a nice religious story to say that they got free when Moses brought them God’s commandments down from the mountain top, but it turns out that bringing commandments, even on stone tablets straight from the mouth of God, is a long way from people accepting and agreeing to live by those commandments. And the story makes it clear that there are lots of ways things can go badly wrong during forty years of wandering in the desert.
Actually, the forty years of wandering is a big fat clue to when it is that freedom comes to the Hebrew people. You see, in Jewish tradition the number forty doesn’t really mean an exact number, like someone celebrating their fortieth birthday. It’s a number that stands for “a really long time.” In the story of Noah and the ark it rains for forty days and forty nights—a whole heck of a lot of rain. The Hebrew people wander in the desert for forty years, and we are to understand it as a whole lot of wandering.
And that’s when the freedom happens. Not in a single dramatic moment when Moses lifts up his walking stick and the people follow him across wet sand and flopping fish to a magical world called “Freedom.” That’s not how freedom works. In order be free you have to escape from the people and the systems holding you captive. But once you’ve done that you still have to get free in your mind. You have to start thinking of yourself as a person who chooses, who has the ability to make things happen in the world, who understands that each of us has both the responsibility and the means to shape the world.
That’s a huge step, and it doesn’t happen overnight. It takes…well, as long as it takes. Often a really long time. And you probably don’t even notice any special moment that things changed, but you realize that you are finally a real grown-up, supporting yourself and making your own way in the world. Or that you don’t try to hide the fact that you’re gay from people who you meet at a party. Or that you’ve stopped drinking for long enough that being sober actually feels normal. Or that you can talk with your parents about how your religious beliefs are different from theirs without getting scared or angry. Or that you speak up when a friend calls something they don’t like “retarded” or “gay” because it matters more to you that we put an end to prejudice than that everybody is happy with you all the time.
In the world of the Bible, forty years means a really long time, but it doesn’t mean forever. Freedom doesn’t happen right away, in a single happy moment. But it does happen. It happens when people are willing to walk away from the familiar world that just isn’t working, when they can see there is a problem, and they can see that change is possible. Freedom starts when you take the first step toward a new way of living. And it is complete…well…maybe in something like forty years.
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