Rabbi Adam M. Allenberg

April 11, 2008

How Did We Become Enslaved?

With Pesach nearing each day, I’ve been thinking a lot about slavery.  It has long puzzled the rabbis of our tradition how it came to be that the descendents of Joseph, an advisor to the Pharaoh, could so easily become enslaved.  The midrash speaks of a scenario like the following:

Over time, the children and grandchildren of Joseph and his brothers came to hold regular jobs, like their Egyptian neighbors.  Some were farmers, some were builders, others craftsmen.  And like other Egyptians, they were paid for their work and made a decent enough wage to eat well, celebrate when necessary and live a comfortable life.  Then, “a new Pharaoh arose who did not know Joseph and his family” and he called all of the Israelites together.  “I will pay you each in gold coins, equivalent to the labor that you contribute, for you to build my temples.”  As many of the Israelites were already working with their hands, it was not difficult to make the move to this particular kind of labor.  And when the Pharaoh asks, he’s not really asking.

After several years of difficult labor with fair compensation, the Pharaoh sent word to the Israelite community that they would be paid in silver coins from now on instead of the gold coins to which they had grown accustomed.  “While your work has not changed these many years, its value has.  There are too many of you to keep paying in gold.  My kingdom will go bankrupt with you employed.”  There was no one to bargain with, no one to complain to.  The vacancies they had created in leaving their former jobs had been filled by Egyptians.  There was nowhere to return to. The Israelites had gotten used to their work conditions and most of them weren’t ready to change.  So they went on working despite having their pay cut in half.

A few years later, the Pharaoh gathered the Israelites to address them in the middle of the afternoon in the month of Av.  The summer sun was oppressively hot.  The water jugs had been empty for hours already.  And while a cooling breeze might offer some relief from time to time, it only kicked up more dust and debris into their faces.  The Pharaoh stood on a balcony from one of the grand palaces the Israelites had built for him, overlooking the enormous throng of laborers and said, “What value is there in the work you do?  You lift stones and work with mud.  You cannot expect me to pay you for such an unimportant contribution.  From now on you will work without payment.  We know how efficient and hard you work for pay, so we expect the same amount of effort under this new arrangement.  If even one of you should step out of line, my guards will remind you for whom it is that you work.  You work for me, the Pharaoh.  Now get back to work.”

On the night of our Passover Seder, we re-enact the moments when we, Israelite slaves, became free.  We tell a story about our journey from the narrow confines of slavery in Egypt to the wide-expanse of freedom that awaited us on the other side of several miracles and a sea.  We remind ourselves that we are, as they were, susceptible to slavery.  We become slaves to our work and to unhealthy relationships.  To our email and our cellphones.  We become stuck in bad habits.  The amount of time we spend in our cars.  The amount of sleep we skip and correct with coffee and sugar.  The glib responses we give to sincere questions.  We give up vacation days for back-pay.  We omit foods we like and replace them with vitamin-supplemented waters.  We ignore causes that concern us deeply because of our fear that we can’t make a difference.

It’s not that we are simple or foolish.  It’s not that we don’t know what it is that is important to us or what we value.  It’s that we’ve fallen prey to the oldest trick in the book.  The bait-and-switch.  We have been lured in by the promise of productivity, creating more time for ourselves. Ease-of-use, one-stop-shopping, silver-bullet choices that, ultimately, sacrifice the things we value most.  We’ve sold our freedoms for a gold coin.

Why do we retell the story of Passover every year?  Because we are constantly fighting for our freedom.  Slavery is more than physical oppression.  It is apathy where there should be passion.  It is fear where there should be confidence.  It is disappointment where there should be love.

In this week leading up to Pesach, as we clean the leavened products out of our homes, let us ask ourselves where there is room for cleaning in our lifestyles.  When we sit down to speak of the slavery our ancestors knew, let us find the courage to acknowledge our own entrapments.  And when we lift a fourth glass of wine to freedom, let us embrace our own freedom.  The freedom to choose otherwise.

Shabbat Shalom and Pesach Sameach v’Kasher