Freedom Is Hard

Dear Friends,

Pesach arrives each year just as the earth begins to soften and stir, buds emerging, light lingering a bit longer each evening. Our festival of liberation falls amidst the land’s rebirth. This springtime remembering, retelling, and celebration of our Exodus story is at once a historical, spiritual, communal, and ecological event.

Looking back, we see how the crisis and chaos of Moshe’s and G!d’s confrontation with Pharaoh eventually lead to our liberation, to Mt. Sinai, to the desert, to our nationhood and greater purpose as a people. And this year, as we face crisis and chaos all around us—in domestic politics, in war, in the peril we face for our people and our planet—I am reflecting on what the average Israelite might have felt as the drama unfolded around them. Moshe prophesied an uncertain path, an open-ended pilgrimage into the wilderness. Pharaoh erupted in fury, punishing us with greater hardship. One could be forgiven for not experiencing those moments as the birth pangs of freedom, but rather as a terrifying downward spiral into the abyss. They did not know what we know, looking back through the privilege of a historical/spiritual perspective.

Deep paradigmatic change can be painful, even when it may lead to greater freedom. And perhaps we face a similar moment now.

• Are we living through the downward spiral into authoritarianism, or witnessing the last gasps of the old paradigm as we evolve into a deeper justice, sustainability, and peace?
• Is the current chaos something to fear and resist, or something to embrace and channel in the direction of our own choosing?
• Do these years feel like wandering in the desert? And within this wandering, can we feel and act with faith in the productive unfolding toward a greater purpose?
• Do we believe in our own individual and collective freedom enough to face and find our way through this pain to the other side? Even when we would rather hide?

Freedom is not the end of the story; it is the beginning. Our ancestors set out into the wilderness filled with uncertainty, vulnerability, and potential. We encountered G!d in the wilderness, leading to our metamorphosis and transformation. Today, we navigate a new wilderness of polycrisis: climate disasters, war, political violence and extremism, isolation and disconnection, and declining physical, mental, emotional, spiritual wellbeing. Dare we imagine what freedom lies on the other side?!

Pesach does not deny the brutality all around us, yet it calls upon us nevertheless to be brave, to walk forward, heads held high, into the unfamiliar terrain of becoming. It strengthens and helps us do so by feeling our own vibrancy like a piece of spring karpas, embracing our own simplicity like a piece of matzah, metabolizing our own bitterness like maror, and enjoying our own sweetness like charoset and the bounty of the festive meal. It beckons us to gather and support each other in this pivotal seasonal and historical moment, to start with our most precious commitment—teaching and loving our children—and to embrace the vitality of spring’s rebirth while reminding ourselves of who we are and who we are meant to be.

So this Pesach, may we be brave as we face the wilderness ahead. And may we walk forward, one step at a time, together.

Chag sameach! And Happy Passover.