Revolutionaries throughout the ages have drawn strength from the story of Passover. As Michael Walzer brilliantly documents in his book “Exodus and Revolution,” the Israelites leaving Egypt inspired liberation movements and thinkers throughout history, from the French Revolution to the Puritans, and even Marx.

The African-American spiritual “Go Down Moses” and the inscription on the Liberty Bell — “Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof,” quoting Leviticus — are just two well-known invocations of the Exodus as a call to freedom.

Moses and the Israelites steadfastly stood up to their oppressors. Prevailing against the odds, they trudged through the desert for 40 years in order to get to the Promised Land. Determined humans that join together with vision and strategy can bend the arc of history towards justice and make redemption possible.

But with freedom comes tremendous responsibility. For this reason, the Torah could imagine that a slave, afraid of what freedom might entail, would choose to say, “I love my master … I do not wish to go free” (Exodus 21:5). The Torah understood that the weight, insecurity and uncertainty of self-determination could sometimes feel unbearable.

The........

© The Jewish Week