At the second Seder, the second night of our journey mei’avdut lecheirut, ‘from slavery to freedom,’ I asked the company what freedom means to them. I gave no one any warning, so the responses were immediate and unpremeditated. Here is some of what followed.
‘Being here, that’s freedom:’ That was the first response, and those words have stayed with me. Life is easily taken for granted, health, mobility, the ability to attend a Seder. I think of the words one says each morning: ‘Modeh ani – Thank you, God, for giving me back my life and soul in mercy.’ I thought, too, of Naama Levy’s comment in The Haggadah of Freedom, on what enabled her to keep going while held hostage in Gaza:
‘I yearned for “the little pleasures of life”… food, a hot shower, time to spend with friends and family, enjoy the warmth of sunlight, to breathe fresh air and just stroll outside…’
‘Freedom is being together,’ said someone else, focussing us on those who long desperately to be reunited with loved ones still held hostage. The words reminded me too of Elsa, a refugee who lived with us for a few weeks, whose mother was murdered before her eyes. ‘And your father?’ I asked. ‘I don’t know if he’s dead, or alive somewhere in prison. I’ve heard nothing for twelve years.’
‘Freedom is remembering, sharing our story.’ There’s that sentence in Bruce Chatwin’s Songlines: the culture of the campfire faces that of the pyramids. Our strength has always been the stories we tell, from the Torah onwards, which unite us and imbue in us our values, community, dignity, justice, compassion.
‘Freedom is what the RAF did for us in the war’: ‘Having lived through one war,’ said Nicky’s aunt Chelle, ‘freedom is those who protect you and save you from bombing and air raids.’ Think of what’s going on today…
One special guest did not respond. Seven years ago, his wife begged us at our Seder to pray for her husband, a political prisoner in Belgian Congo: ‘I believe in prayer,’ she said. People get murdered in those prisons; I doubted she’d see her husband alive. But here he was, a free man, at our Seder. His commentary was his presence.
With us, too, was Okito, leader of the DCR’s community in exile. He wrote to me afterwards:
‘For us freedom is deeply tied to justice and human dignity. We are profoundly affected by the ongoing human rights crisis in our country of origin…The silence of the international community is heartbreaking… We see freedom not as something to enjoy in isolation, but as a recognition of others’ suffering. Today in Israel, families are in deep pain, grieving and waiting for loved ones taken hostage. True freedom cannot exist while others remain in chains. To fully experience our own liberation, we must acknowledge and respond to the suffering of others.’
The last comment went to our daughter Kadya, who read from Maya Angelou’s wonderful tribute to the mother, Love Liberates:
It doesn’t just hold you, that’s ego,
Love liberates…
She [her mother] released me, she freed me…
That’s love…
Here’s to a world of freedom, dignity, justice, love and hope!