SHABBAT HAGADOL 5782-2

Hey Will Smith, Are You Truly Free?

Today is a special Shabbat: Shabbat Hagadol, the Great Sabbath—the Shabbat before Passover. Today we commemorate the 1^st act that the Jews took in Egypt to show that they were free. Moses ordered the Jewish people (Ex. 12:3): v’yikchu lahem ish…seh labayit (and you shall take for yourselves…a lamb for each household). This was to be the lamb they would slaughter a few days later to eat at the 1^st Seder, and smear its blood on their doorposts in anticipation of that moment in time when the Angel of Death would come and destroy the Egyptian firstborn, and the Jews would be free.

Can you imagine the courage this took? The Egyptians worshipped the lamb, and Moses ordered the Jewish slaves to take this Egyptian god and tie it up outside their homes for a few days so that the Egyptians will see their defiance. After hundreds of years of slavery, we can only imagine what courage this took! It was the 1^st step culminating in their freedom.

When would they truly be free? My colleague, Rabbi Mitchell Wohlberg, points out what the Jews soon did to indicate that they were truly free. Actually, it’s something they didn’t do on their way out of Egypt—they didn’t take revenge! They Egyptian people were in turmoil. There was screaming all throughout Egypt after the Angel of Death struck all their firstborn. The Jews were then free to take revenge on their enemies, on their oppressors. They had every reason in the world and every right in the world to do that. The Egyptians enslaved them for 210 years. They killed their baby boys. And yet the Jews just left. There was no act of revenge taken.

My teacher at Yeshiva University, the dean of 20^th Century Modern Orthodoxy, Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, writes:

         Would we blame the Jews if they had engaged in a few acts of vandalism and even murder on the night of the 15^th of Nisan—killing a few of the taskmasters who had thrown their babies into the Nile?

         Still, the Jews, at the command of Gd, said no. They defied themselves and refused to gratify a basic need of the human being—the need for revenge. But by defeating themselves, they also won the greatest of all victories. They became free.

         This is exactly what we commemorate and celebrate on the night of the Seder. The Jews were entitled to be filled with anger and the desire for revenge. It would have been understandable. But they controlled themselves. They were free to do the right thing. 

This reminds me of the account told by Elie Wiesel and others about what Jews did after being liberated from the Auschwitz concentration camp. They did not seek to find guns and search for every German they could find to kill. After all the Germans killed almost all their families—their grandparents, their fathers, their mothers, their siblings, their babies. But no, they gathered together, made a minyan, davened and said Kaddish for their families. It was not revenge on their minds. No, it was the souls of their departed loved ones.

Today, events in the Ukraine have evoked all sorts of feelings. It’s such a mix-up of having a Ukraine—with which we have such a bad history of a 1,000 years of the worst bloodshed and violence committed against Jews—and now having a president of the Ukraine who’s Jewish! Some have suggested we shouldn’t care about the Ukrainians because of this. After all, Bogdan Chmielnitzki killed 100,000 Jews and there’s still a statue glorifying him in Kyiv. There are even 3 Ukrainian military medals established recently—the Order of Bogdan Chmielnitzki 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd Class—that are named after, next to Hitler, the greatest enemy and slaughter of the Jewish people. So, who cares about the Ukrainians? But you know what? We have to let go of those feelings for revenge. Otherwise, we’ll never be free to be you and me.

All of us carry our own little events in life that are not so little—that weigh on us. One of my colleagues described as follows: Many of us continue to carry heavy baggage without even appreciating we have an option to put it down. [Saying things like:] “He really badmouthed me behind my back.” Or, “Can you believe they scheduled the Bar Mitzvah on the same day I had already reserved for my daughter’s wedding.” Or, “She absolutely humiliated me at the committee meeting after I worked myself to the bone for this project.” Or, “I’ve been taking care of that for the past 5 years and not once did he visit for more than a couple of hours; not once did he ask if I needed any help.”

Many of us carry that kind of baggage. But ask yourself, what these people did to you, was it any worse than being slapped in the face in front of millions of people, as Will Smith did at the Oscars to Chris Rock? Smith was angry. He had every reason to feel hurt and insulted. My initial reaction when I saw the video of what happened was to say, “Good for him for standing up and protecting his wife.” Then I asked myself, “Would I have done the same thing?” The answer was an emphatic, NO! I don’t believe that violence—except in self-defense—is ever justified. The last time I threw a punch at someone was at a bully twice my size in kindergarten who wouldn’t leave me alone. After that he did!

Will Smith didn’t have to slap a Chris Rock to show how he felt. Wouldn’t it have been so much more effective if he had the presence of mind to go up to the podium, and instead of slapping Chris Rock, say that this kind of humor is hurtful and inappropriate. He could have accepted his Oscar and made an important statement about his wife and her illness. And the whole world would have applauded him.

My friends, we show that we are really free when we don’t give in to our most negative and base instincts. The Jews didn’t strike back at the Egyptians and so they were free. We have the ability not to strike back and let others define who we are.

Have a Chag Kasher v’sameyach, a Kosher and joyous Passover, and let’s be free as we enjoy our Festival of Freedom. Amen!