Facing Freedom
Parshas Yisro: Serving our best interests
We all love freedom. How could we not? The heart skips a beat at that piercing cry of revolutionaries, rebels and risk-takers. We celebrate it, pay homage to it, and strive for it - because freedom is worth fighting for. “Freedom is a possession of inestimable value". So declared the legendary Roman orator Cicero, and we tend to agree.
But what exactly is freedom? Is it the ability to live one's life without interference from others? Perhaps it means the right to make decisions for oneself, to think and speak freely, or to pursue one's dreams without fear of judgement. In the United States, freedom is the ultimate buzzword. The vague terms "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" are relentlessly invoked from every corner of the political spectrum as justification for their respective ideals.
Although definitions of freedom vary wildly, their unmistakable shared theme is the human desire to be allowed to do what I want. And whilst this characterisation of the ideal may seem crass, it's challenging to think of an equally accurate summation.
But what is the Jewish approach to liberation? The Hebrew Exodus, a redemption narrative referenced by everyone from Martin Luther King to Bob Marley, embodies the archetypal journey to freedom. Indeed the celebratory Passover meal builds on the concept of 'cheirus' freedom as one of its central motifs. Yet there is something peculiar at hand. While our Sages indeed employ the language of liberty in their approach to redemption from Egyptian oppression, they also use the jarringly contradictory term of 'Avdus' servitude. In other words, it may have been that the nascent Jewish nation escaped from Egypt, but they quickly found themselves answering to a new master. God.
This week's parsha exhibits an apparent tension between the ideal of freedom from Egypt and the reality of life-long servitude to God. At Sinai, we acquired the ten commandments alongside an intricately complex legal and moral system covering every imaginable facet of our daily existence. A lifetime of service would now be God's expectation of us. We, of course, understand the infinite benefits of engaging with our creator and his Torah. Clearly, God's stewardship is not remotely comparable to the intolerable suffering Pharaoh inflicted upon our ancestors. Yet it is impossible to avoid the fact that our relationship with Him still seems to be one of subordination and obligation, however benevolent it may be.
We are not merely asking an abstract question. Every one of us experiences this lingering conflict between freedom and service in our own way. We all aspire to become the finest Jews we possibly can be, but we also want other things. These desires may come into legal or spiritual conflict with religious Judaism in ways that force us to resist them. Can we really consider ourselves free if we can't do exactly what we want?
When faced with accepting the Torah at Sinai, the Jewish people famously declared the cryptic reply, naaseh ve'nishma 'we will do, and we will listen.' Although many commentators offer their understanding of this phrase, the interpretation of the Maharal sheds light on the nature of our relationship with Torah law in general. His approach will guide us towards answering our overarching question.
The Maharal explains that 'Nishma' corresponds to our inner worldview and core goals, whereas 'Naaseh' represents how we express ourselves in action. Unfortunately, the disunity between a person's ideals and how he engages with the world is a reality we are all too aware of. What an individual professes to be correct is rarely a precise indicator of how he acts. By declaring 'Naaseh Ve'Ve'Nishma', the Jews implied that in accepting the Torah, they would be unifying these two disparate aspects of the personality.
But why is this so? Psychology speaks about core effects. These are our two fundamental motivators, pleasure and pain. Core effects dictate our decisions and behaviour, as we naturally seek pleasure and avoid pain. Yet whilst we sometimes succumb to our primitive urges, humans possess a far more sophisticated sense of joy and distress than animals. We can uniquely appreciate these pleasures consciously and even contemplate the potential prospect of happiness1. For this reason, we can resist immediate gratification, such as narcotics, understanding that doing so sets us up for a meaningful life's more profound, more enduring satisfaction.
In addition, there is another desire that is dimensionally different from what we have discussed - our urge to choose good from evil. Man's moral intuition alone implies a transcendent spirit. The longing to do what is right and avoid what is wrong is beyond animal comprehension, yet it is our most central human aspiration. And although we frequently lapse into chasing base impulses:
All of us would agree that our ultimate ambition is to live a life of intense meaning. Somehow we just get lost along the way.
Everyone is a slave to something. We are beholden to our careers, luxury goods, and technology. On average, Americans check their phones three hundred and forty-four times daily, or once every four minutes2. In such an ecosystem, the mere act of deleting social media equates to a modern Harakiri suicide ritual. It is self-understood that to achieve fulfilment, we must sacrifice our 'lesser' desires for the ones that truly represent who we are.
As we discussed multiple times, a Jew's essence is rooted in God. Despite the seemingly innumerable opposing external urges, our innermost yearning is to be one with our creator and source. It follows that being in service to God is simultaneously an act of subordination and a radical act of freedom. By keeping the details of Torah law, we are doing what we truly want, becoming who we really are.
An idea that frequently appears in the writings of Rabbi Sacks is the distinction between 'freedom from' and 'freedom to'. At Sinai, our ancestors recognised the reality of true freedom. Their actions vividly reflected their inner views when 'naaseh' and 'nishma' were combined. Modern democracy granted us freedom from tyranny and oppression. But only connecting with God and his Torah will give us the freedom to do what we truly desire.
Good Shabbos, and Keep Pondering!
Fantastic as always!
Outstanding!