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Day 8
What the Ghetto Can Teach
In the biblical account of the Exodus, the Israelites celebrated their freedom while still slaves to their Egyptian overlords. How can one explain this?
The answer is both powerful and life affirming. On April 19, 1943, the residents of the Warsaw Ghetto held a makeshift Passover meal, celebrating their freedom. The Ghetto, however, was anything but free and Nazi soldiers were in the process of liquidating it.
Freedom is not just the absence of oppression, but the presence of a meaningful route to self-fulfillment. The Israelites and the residents of the Warsaw Ghetto found spiritual freedom even in the midst of the most extreme hardship.
In Jewish tradition we differentiate between yi’ud, which means fate and goral, which means destiny. My fate is the hand of cards that I am dealt. My destiny is how I choose to play them.
--Ephraim Mirvis, What Passover has to tell us about freedom, thejc.com
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