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With Freedom Comes Responsibility

02/12/2020 12:17:06 PM

Feb12

Beth Schafer

In this week’s Torah portion, Parshat Yitro, we read the Ten Commandments. The very first one states “I am Adonai Your God who led you out of Egypt.” Egypt is not just a part of our story, it is a part of our very identity. Every Passover Seder asks us to feel, in fact, to live, as if we had personally been freed from slavery in Egypt. The Hebrew word for Egypt, Mitzrayim, means, “from the narrow place.” Not unlike a constricting birth canal, Egypt was the place the Israelites had to pass through to be born into freedom and fully realize our potential as a Jewish nation.

Eleanor Roosevelt wrote, “Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility.” We can’t mention the word Egypt without being reminded of our liberation but also of our purpose as a free people: to commemorate our redemption from slavery by pursuing justice and practicing compassion. God brought us out of Egypt and charged our freedom with responsibility that makes imperative the social action work we do at Temple Sinai. It is that responsibility that calls on each of us to act as the prophet Isaiah asks of us: “Limdu Heiteiv, dirshu mishpat, ashru chamotz, shivtu yatom, rivu almana. Learn to do good; seek justice, defend the oppressed, take up the cause of the orphan; plead the case of the widow." (1:17).

May the commandments always remind us of our privilege and our purpose.

Shabbat shalom,

Beth

Fri, March 29 2024 19 Adar II 5784