Pesach is described in our prayers as "Zman Herutainu" - "The Season of our Freedom." This description is coupled in the prayer book and in the Kiddush prayers with the phrase "Mikrah Kodesh" that I prefer to translate as "A Call to Sacred Living". Freedom calls us to live sacred lives.

The Rabbis expressed this in a different way. They said that the Hebrew word for freedom and the Hebrew word for inscription are closely related. In fact, the letters of the two words are identical, only the vowels are different. By pointing to this strange connection between the two words the Rabbis question the meaning of the idea "freedom". Can a person be free without any behavioral boundaries? To what end is a person free? Is freedom one of those ideas that stands all by itself?

The Rabbis understood that freedom and choice are bound up together. To be free means to be able to choose and choice must be grounded in beliefs that guide a person through life. When the Rabbis speak about the freedom of Pesach they are telling us that the Jew is only free when he chooses to follow G-d's words inscribes on the Holy Tablets. To be free then means the willingness to accept freely the Torah that Hashem offers us.

This notion of freedom is a difficult one for the Western mind. We realize that there are always boundaries set to our freedoms. For instance, freedom of speech. One is never completely free to say whatever one wants. If what one says can lead to the harm of another, one is not free to speak it. One does not shout fire in a crowded theater. One cannot incite to hate crimes. Free speech is free speech up to a point and that is true of all of our freedoms. They are not absolute. So when a Jew is granted the freedom that is described in our prayer books as symbolizing or as expressing teh central idea of Pesach, it is never assumed that freedom stands by itself alone as an absolute value. The events of Pesach that lead to our freedom from our Egyptian taskmasters only set the stage for the choices demanded from us on Shavuot.

Hence as an observant Jew committed to the ideas contained in the Torot (The written and the oral Torah), I am obligated to use my freedom to choose not only to satisfy my own needs or my own emotional desires, but essentially to find the opportunity to follow the ways of the Law, as set out over the millennia. When I depart from those ways and I can only assume that all of us at one time another depart from Hashem's directive, I do so knowing that I have chosen poorly. Behavior and habit are not easily changed, but the mindset that led to the choices is changeable; and honesty demands that we be capable of recognizing our choices as being poor or no longer warranted.

Many of our people, when they stood at the shores at the Sea of Reeds encumbered by the mindset of the slave and paralyzed in fear, were perfectly willing to return to the slavery of Egypt. For that is all they knew. It would have been a very bad choice and so Hashem Himself overrode their choice and commanded them to enter the sea. They were not capable in their newfound freedom to seek the call of the sacred and to recognize that the call may be difficult to carry out. Not to heed the call is to deny the essence of our own freedom.

All of this may seem impractical to many of the readers of this article. Every faith seeks the Divine. We as Jews have chosen to abide by a Code that has existed for 3,000 years. Our people declared at Sinai, "We will do and then we will try to understand." The Code of our choice then ws in the "doing" and Halacha, or Jewish Law, centers around the "doing". It is my firm opinion that the non Halachic changes that one sees today, wheterh these changes relate to non-traditional practices in our synagogue our whether they relate to family law or whether they relate to the means we choose to reach out to G-d, will not succeed. They are expressions of our culture but not Judaism. That ancient phrase, the "Season of our Freedom" calls upon us to utilize the choice that freedom gives us to march towards Sinai adn it is only on the road of authentic Torah practice that those steps can be taken.

Pesach is a happy Holy Day. It is family theater. It talks about wise sons, speaks to wicked sons and foolish sons. It speaks to sons who are simple and seek simple answers. It speaks to sons who have no capacity to ask questions. But good questions arise from knowledge, and the family theater that wil take place when we read the Haggadah is directed to arouse the questioning of the self, which is the root of being free.

I wish for all of our congregational family a "freilich & kosher Pesach", surrounded by loved ones who will ask questions, and enjoy yet another Seder together.