Passover: A Celebration of Freedom

In the Western world, most people today would agree that the enslavement of fellow human beings is a human rights violation, even though slavery was permissible in the Old and New Testaments.  In Judaism, the Passover holiday commemorates the liberation of the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt and their exodus to the Holy Land as given to them by their god.

On the first night of Passover, observant Jewish families have a ritual meal called the seder.  During the seder, the Jewish family (often led by the male head of the household) reads from the Haggadah, a special book which explains the reasons that Jewish people celebrate Passover, and why they eat and drink what they do in what sequence during the holiday, through question-and-answer, narrative, prayer, rituals, and games.  What is not explained very well, however, is how the Jews became slaves in Egypt in the first place.

Respected sources state that the ancient Hebrews migrated to Egypt in order to escape famine.  The Pharaoh at that time allowed them to stay in Egypt, where they prospered, became fruitful and multiplied.  A later Pharaoh saw this Jewish baby boom as a threat to the kingdom (although this too is never explained), and he decided to enslave those of working age and kill off male infants.  Moses would have been one of those infants, if his mother Jochebed did not send him down the Nile in a basket, to be adopted by the Pharaoh's daughter.

As the infant Moses would not nurse from the Pharaoh's daughter, it was suggested that she find a Hebrew wet nurse for him.  Moses' older sister Miriam went to fetch Jochebed, who was allowed to care for Moses in the Pharaoh's custody.  This meant that Moses never lost his connection to the Hebrew people, and therefore was not corrupted by Egyptian ways.  He was selected by the god of his people to lead the ancient Hebrews out of Egypt into the Promised Land.

Freedom for the ancient Hebrews came at a cost.  Their god told them that, if they wanted to live as free people, they had to follow many rules to prove that they were civilized and of a higher moral caliber than the Egyptians, as well as rules that would simply appease their god.  During the Jewish Diaspora, where Jews migrated frequently and were rarely given equal rights in the countries where they settled, they took the definition of freedom very seriously.  All humans have the right to freedom of movement, the right to personal safety, the right to work, the right to believe what they wish, and the right to pursue their happiness.  It is said that the most spiritual of the Jewish people fight for social justice for everyone, in memory of every period of persecution that they have faced.