The sun is shining, the birds are singing and the leaves are back to their original color- signs I personally look forward to every year. And no, not just because I’m excited to wear sandals and paint my nails pink- it’s almost Pesach, one of the biggest holidays of the year.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but for me, Pesach entails a pretty intense spring cleaning, buying new clothes that aren’t made of layers of wool and tweed (I live in Toronto. It’s cold!) and desperately scrambling for a suitable, short dvar torah to say at my seder. These aren’t exactly lofty goals- I’m well aware that my focus tends to be on the physical and materialistic. But the truth is, during high school, Pesach is smack in the middle of exams and final papers and Independent Study Projects. I don’t really give it the attention or consideration the chag really deserves.
So I decided that this would be a good year to change it up.
After all, I am in seminary, and this is supposed to be a year of ‘spiritual growth’ so all cliches aside, it only seemed fitting.
Pesach is a holiday about freedom. God came and took the Jews out of slavery in Egypt and they all lived Happily Ever After. A little simplistic- OK, my teachers and rabbis would probably cry if they read that- but it serves the purpose. On Pesach, we celebrate being free.
But are we really?
We obviously aren`t still in physical bondage. And while there are still people in the world whose lives are subject to a dictator`s whim, I am one of the fortunate few who are absolutely not. There`s no one telling us what to do or who to be.
Except that there kind of are.
What else can you call the thousands of fashion magazines who command us to wear stripes and not plaid? The countless blogs that tell us how to feel about everything from jewelery to cross breeding dogs to the best online shopping sites? The infinite amount of talking heads who are more than happy to tell us how to think, feel and act?
We may not be slaves in the physical sense, but we are slaves nonetheless. We are slaves to the idols of consumerism and materialism. We are slaves to fashion and beauty. We are slaves to our deep and desperate need to be needed. We are slaves to our own ego and vanity.
We are slaves, even if we like to pretend that we are free.
It is hard, sometimes, to relate to Pesach. After all, it`s just something that happened to some people thousands of years ago. Who cares? It doesn`t apply to us.
Maybe, we should all try to keep in mind that slavery of the mind is just as real and immediate as slavery of the body. It is just as real, and even harder to break free of, for we are slave and master both. We are the ones who enslave ourselves.
And we are the ones who can free ourselves.
Next year, may we all be gathered as free men.
Arielle Wasserman is currently studying at Midreshet Lindenbaum, one of Masa Israel’s 200 programs.
