Moses Never Said "Let My People Go"
© Rabbi Daniel Lapin

Many people mistakenly believe that Passover is a holiday celebrating freedom and liberation. Not so quickly. Moses never said "Let my people go." What he actually said was "Let my people go so that they may worship me in the desert." God did not free the Jews from being servants; he just freed them from being servants to Egypt. Henceforth they were to be servants to Him. Nothing but a switch of bosses.

This is worth noting because no other Jewish festival has been appropriated by as many chic and politically correct causes as has Passover. I have been invited to Passover seders celebrating Cuban liberation, homosexual liberation, free speech, sexual liberation, the war on poverty, animal rights and several others you'd never believe. I have a remarkable collection of seder liturgies or Haggadoth at home, to prove it. The common theme of all these up to date Passover ceremonies is the abolition of tradition. How disappointed the organizers of these bizarre seders would be to discover that Passover celebrates accepting God's authority rather than rejecting it.

Imagine being able to go back in time and rescript the twentieth century. Personally, I would have granted victory to Germany's Kaiser in World War I. Just think of it; no World War II, certainly no Lenin, no communism and no Soviet Union. How about saving millions of lives that were lost to the scourge of socialism, both national as in Germany and Marxist in Russia. And for a bonus-no France to clutter up the twentieth century. Yes, I would certainly have let Germany win the first world war.

As an Orthodox Jew, if I could go back in time would I eliminate the Egypt experience from Jewish history? Absolutely not; it served a vital function. It taught the embryonic Jewish people how to take orders. You see, a tragedy of today's public school system is that it fails to teach the single most important skill for avoiding poverty by obtaining and retaining a job. It fails to teach high school students how to take orders.

We are so intent on nurturing independence and self-esteem that we forget to impart the one quality that employers like to see in young people they hire. Most employers want to see a "will do" spirit in new employees. Most bosses detest "attitude." This is why holding down a job, any job, will serve a resume far better than a semester of midnight basket ball. When a young entry-level employee demonstrates to a future employer that he or she has already learned how to take and carry out orders, good things will follow.

Like most employers, God also prefers people who are not too arrogant to take orders; particularly orders such as those found in the Torah. God's problem, as it were, was how to prepare and train the Children of Israel to accept Divine authority. His solution-simple: Place them all in a kind of involuntary entry level job; well, slavery actually. A few hundred years of Egyptian bondage would work wonders. Pretty soon God's rules would appear mild and benevolent by comparison. And it worked. Imagine the rebellious response He would have got from the Israelites had He given them the Torah and its many restrictions without previously "softening" them up in Egypt. As it was, they were delighted to receive the Torah and pledge obedience.

On Passover, many otherwise rational Jews celebrate their Passover seder, just as Jews have been doing for some thirty three hundred years. We will pore over a lengthy and detailed account of the Exodus and solemnly drink four cups of tongue-curling sweet wine. We will taste tear inducing bitter herbs and consume large quantities of totally indigestible crackers we call matzoh. Now if this doesn't show our acceptance of God's authority I don't know what would.

For this reason Passover focuses as much on the slavery in Egypt as it does upon the redemption. The slavery had a purpose, namely to teach us that all people are enslaved. One's only choice is whether to be enslaved to God's rules or to a variety of grotesque human ideologies. Paradoxically, true independence comes not through the abolition of all rules but through the acceptance of Divine rules. Moses urged Pharaoh to let the people go. Not to free them from all authority, but to allow them to serve the One Authentic Authority.