Who is Free?

Rabbi Melanie Aron

May 5, 2002

Rabbi Ezra Spicehandler, who was here during my maternity leave when Shifrah was born, used to tell a story about his grand-daughter and Passover. It seems his wife had been working very hard to clean and prepare for the holiday, and finally having finished, she exclaimed, "Now I'm free." His granddaughter responded: "Are you three grandma? I'm three too."

Freedom means a lot of different things. Sometimes freedom means liberation from obligations and responsibilities. That's the kind of freedom we experience on vacations and days off. We have a free day when our calendar is without commitments. But free time is not enough to grant us freedom. The unemployed, for example, may not have a place they need to be a certain time, but they don't necessarily feel free. Their worries about the future and concerns about providing for their families prevent them from a feeling of freedom. While the Israelites needed liberation from physical bondage, more of us may feel the need for freedom in our heads.

The last chapter of Pirke Avot which we read this week, the week before Shavuot, includes the words: "No person is free except the one who studies Torah". Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch an Orthodox rabbi in the 19th century explained these curious words in this way: The Torah, he wrote, "frees us from the crushing and degrading power of the worries and troubles of everyday life." Studying Torah for many of us can be an escape from the worries and concerns we carry around with us regularly. I know the time I spend preparing for my monthly Talmud class, time I spend in Torah study, is a refreshing break from the many small administrative duties that are also part of my responsibilities. Even better is the study that I do that does not have an immediate purpose- Torah lishmah, study for its own sake. Others have similarly said to me that taking some time out of their regular routines for the study of Torah gives them a feeling of spiritual freedom.

Torah also provides freedom in another sense. If we study Torah ourselves then we are free from reliance on other people's interpretation of our own religion. There is a great sense of freedom that comes from having learned something and no longer needing to believe what anyone else tells you. It is this type of freedom that the Bat and Bar Mitzvah ceremony stresses by having the young person read directly from the Torah scroll. The bar or bat mitzvah is showing us that they have learned this for themselves, and no longer require any intermediary to read from the Torah scroll. As Reform Jews we have a responsibility to make individual choices in our religious observance. Without knowledge those choices are simply the default acceptance or rejection of what others tell us. Making choices become meaningful when we make them on the basis of knowledge.

Finally there is a third type of freedom that Torah provides and that is the freedom of knowing one's values. Having a core that can guide us gives us freedom from other people's attempt to sway us in a particular direction. We are not prey to worry or angst when comparing ourselves to others if we have a strong sense of our own direction. We are freer to become ourselves, and not be as bound by that which is popular in our own community or time.

On Thursday night Shavuot eve we will read in the description of the giving of the Torah: And the tablets were the work of God, inscribed harut upon the tablets." The rabbis say don't read that three letter root, chet, raysh, tav, as charut, engraved, but rather cheirut, freedom, for no person is free except for one who studies Torah."