I once asked a Holocaust survivor, “How did they celebrate the holiday of freedom during the Holocaust while they were not free?” It’s not a simple question to answer, but I think this year we could ask the same question: How are many of our brethren going to celebrate the holiday of freedom while they are not free? We cannot forget the over 130 people who are still captive in Gaza. Hopefully, most of them, or all of them, should be alive. But whoever is alive, how are they going to be celebrating Pesach (Passover)? And those who are quote-unquote free but lost a parent, a father or mother, a sibling, a son or daughter—how are they going to celebrate freedom? What about those who don’t have a home anymore? What about those who don’t have parnassah (livelihood) anymore? What about those who don’t have legs anymore? How do they celebrate freedom?
It’s not an easy question to answer. I would like to give two thoughts. One is an answer to the question, though it is difficult. There’s a very famous Klausenberger Rebbe who answered that question when he was beaten by a Nazi officer. The Nazi officer asked him, “Do you still believe that you are the chosen nation while I’m beating you?” I looked him straight in the face, and he said to him, “As long as I’m the one being beaten and you’re the one abusing me, I am the chosen nation and you’re not.” Being free and being chosen are not always what is perceived as such.
I would like to suggest that throughout Jewish history, more often than not, the Jewish people were oppressed and still had to celebrate the holiday of freedom. So how did they do that? Freedom means not being slaves to our anger, to our hatred, to our racism, like they did to us. When we are true to our principles, the Torah tells us, the Gemara says, real freedom is to be in control of our emotions and in control of what we do, to know that what we’re doing is the right thing. That’s true freedom.
Sometimes true freedom could be behind bars. It’s difficult. It’s difficult to swallow it. But it’s definitely true. Like this Rebbe said, I could be on the floor in blood, but I’m free. I’m free because I’m doing the right thing. I’m free because I’m in control of my emotions. But you are not free because you are captive in your hatred for us. Being captive in something is not being free.
And so, to the thousands and hundreds of thousands of Jews who are suffering this year, where freedom is not evident at all. But I have to know that as a Klal Yisrael (the Jewish people), we’ve been fractured, but we have been strengthened. We have been fractured because we have suffered a lot. But we are stronger because we are stronger together, because our values are re-strengthened much more than before, because this war has brought a lot of bad but has also brought a lot of good. And I’ll tell you how.
We have three matzot (unleavened bread), as we know, and we’re going to break the middle matzah. The Chida asks, “Why do we break the middle matzah? What is the point?” He says that you have the past, the present, and the future. Many, many times in the present, the Klal Yisrael is broken. The Klal Yisrael is broken, and because of that, we break the matzah.
The Klal Yisrael was broken because there was a lot of division between the Jews. And today, again, you could see in the news that they’re going to point out the divisions. But that’s the news. The news is here to show you the negative, the scandalous, what is going to be watched by people and wow the people. But if you go to Israel, even today, there’s much more union and much more unity than there used to be.
And so, it’s true that this war brought a lot of problems. Of course, a hundred percent. A lot of tragedy, a lot of tears at the end of the day. We are learning how to cohabit together. We’re learning how to respect our differences. And that’s true freedom. You’re free when you know how to forgive. You’re free when you know how to respect someone. If you can’t respect somebody, that means that you’re not free. That means that you are the eved (slave) of a hatred, of your uncertainties, of your low self-esteem. That’s what it means. And therefore, it’s a deeper kind of cherut, a deeper kind of liberty, that we have to try to understand this year. I hope we can.