We are currently in the midst of Pesach, or Passover, a holiday that has become the 8 day (or for some people only 7 or even 2 day) Thanksgiving equivalent for Jews. There are certainly parallels between these two occasions - families coming together at a huge dinner table where we succumb to eating hefty amounts of culturally significant food. But there's another similarity that - in our increasingly secular world - it seems many are forgetting or worse, bypassing as an opportunity to have a conversation. At the root of both holidays is a word that is highly complex and often used yet not appreciated or considered by those who believe they have it already: Freedom.
It seems to be generally accepted that people have the ability to choose, that free will is a given. I could argue both sides to whether or not we have free will but that's not the point of what I'm trying to say so let's approach this under the guise of free will and choice existing. With this in mind, I ask what kinds of Freedom with a capital F we have. For Americans (which is what I am and therefore the lens I use here), there are five freedoms that we're "guaranteed" under the constitution. Can you name them all? In case you don't, they're freedom of assembly, petition, press, religion, and speech. The thing is, do we really have all of those things? I have read so many stories recently where people are denied these supposed "basic" freedoms, and this is of course not the first time in the history of humanity that freedom has been an issue. We are currently waiting for the decisions on DOMA and Prop 8 some time before the end of June, legislation that has denied many freedoms that their neighbors have.
On a smaller scale, there are other kinds of freedom that I've been considering but they're not the kind of freedom that people generally think about. I think that freedom is more of that overarching, legislatively influenced, societally accepted/expected kind of free, but there's another kind of freedom that we take for ourselves. Because those freedoms I was talking about, those don't give people as much choice. Sometimes our hands are tied and we are unable to just make a choice. We need to act and take that freedom back for ourselves. But I'm referring to when we do have the choice, the option to be free. We can choose to be free rather than slaves. When I finally ended a toxic relationship, I chose to be free of my ex and free of commitment. When I decided that the job I was in was only holding me back and making me miserable, I left it. I realized that I'd become a slave to my relationship, a slave to an unfulfilling job, a slave to myself. And obviously in a way we're all slaves to something or someone at some point in our lives. It is only when we realize what is holding us back, what we are slaves to, that we can then claim our freedom and get from where we are to where we're supposed to be.
So we can keep attending the Passover Seder and the Thanksgiving Feast, but let's not forget these themes of freedom and being free. Let's take these opportunities to be introspective and enlightening. We may be retelling the same story, but our lives have changed, altered, grown since the last time we were together. Rather than just going through the motions, I encourage us all to see these holidays as more than a chance to engage in familial drama before simply returning to our regular day-in, day-out. By continuing to give meaning to these experiences, we will continue to grow and learn, and isn't that the most freeing thing of all?
No comments:
Post a Comment