It is not only the holiday of Passover which celebrates freedom, but also the holiday of Shavu’ot. Shavu’ot celebrates the giving of the Torah, and according to the following famous mishnah, it is the Torah which provides true freedom in life.
Mishnah Avot 6.2:
The tablets were God’s work, and the writing was God’s writing, incised [harut] upon the tablets (Ex 32:16). Do not read harut [“incised”], but rather heirut [“freedom”], for no one is as free as the person who occupies himself with the study of Torah.
What does this famous saying mean? How does the Torah make you free? Here is one thought on the issue. Please offer your own ideas by clicking on “comments” below.
People are by their nature slaves. If we do not take upon ourselves the yoke of God’s Torah and become “slaves” to God, then we will inevitably enslave ourselves to some other person or force, to someone with more power than ourselves, to work or money, to the pursuit of physical pleasure or health, or even, sometimes, to our children. The Torah lifts us above these enslavements by teaching that we actually belong to God, so that no person or thing can own us, even ourselves. The Torah frees us by setting limits on all these other human forces and obligations, by reminding us that we also carry inside ourselves a piece of God, and that ultimately, we are only answerable to Him.
Last week, I taught a class at Congregation Beth Abraham Jacob (Albany, NY) about the Sefat Emet’s notion of making ourselves hefker, ownerless, like a desert. A member of the audience commented that perhaps the purpose of making ourselves ownerless is to give ourselves permission to study Torah. If not for the command from God to study Torah, we would not take the time to do so, because of the many demands on our time – our spouses, our children, our jobs, our community, and so on. The Torah helps us assert that we are not owned by any of these, but ownerless in this world, and therefore free to worship the One who does own us, and can elevate us above these worldly concerns.
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