Rabbi Roodyn

Freedom Doesn’t Come For Free

The Bnei Yisrael are free at last! Leaving the labour camps and ghettoes of Egypt behind them, they march triumphantly into the desert. It seems like they have the whole world at their feet as they advance to their destiny in the Promised Land. However from the opening lines of the sedra it is clear that this is not going to be plain sailing. Rather than take the most direct route, they are told to journey through the desert to avoid conflict with the neighbouring Philistines. This conflict could result in their reconsidering their new found freedom and taking a U-turn back to Egypt.

This apparent regret of their new found freedom is repeated a number of times in our sedra. In fact almost every time they encounter a challenge, whether being hemmed in at the Red Sea or running out of food, the refrain is the same, ‘Are there no graves in Egypt that you have taken us out to die in the wilderness… It is better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness’ (Shemos 14:11-12). It almost seems like the Bnei Yisrael are suffering from collective Stockholm syndrome!

Rav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch zt’’l points out that whilst last week’s sedra deals with the theoretical and ideal aspects of liberty, this week’s deals with the actual reality that the people faced. The people have not yet reached the ideal madreigah to which they were called. At the same time it is evident that they did not possess the power and courage to attain and retain freedom by themselves. The attainment of freedom and the ability to live with this new reality was through Hashem’s work alone. If it had been up to the people alone, then despite their miraculous liberation and being heavily armed they would have gone back to being slaves in Egypt. Put succinctly, freedom doesn’t come for free, it has to be earned and developed.

The Nesivos Shalom quotes the sefarim hakedoshim who note that the Torah mentions the exodus from Egypt fifty times, as if to tell us that attaining true freedom is a gradual process. In fact the Hebrew term for the exodus from Egypt, yetzias mitzrayim literally means, ‘the taking out of Egypt’. To be truly free, they need to be liberated from the slave mentality, the lack of bitachon and fighting spirit that had been developed over the generations.  Bitachon means that a person feels empowered to act courageously, no matter what the task is, as they realise that ultimately the result is in Hashem’s hands.

As much as the Bnei Yisrael need to leave Egypt, they need to ensure that Egypt leaves them. And that takes time.

Good Shabbos