A Message from Rabbi Yitzhak

(April/May 2009)

Devotion to freedom emanates from the deepest core of Jewish values. The often repeated phrase, zecher litziat mitzrayim – our coming out from a place of oppression – serves as an entrance to our sacred festivals and every Shabbat. While freedom is an ever-present concern, inspiration and aspiration, it also has its own particular festival for celebration, Passover – Z’man Cheruteinu, the Season of our Freedom. This is a time for heightened awareness of this sacred gift...

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Celebrating the Struggle for Universal Freedom

Torah instructed our ancestors to tell and retell the story of our liberation from generation to generation, keeping it alive through both joyful and dreadful circumstances, assuring its survival into our time, our homes, our tables, our lips, to be told again to our children and their children.

During Pesach, as we celebrate our freedom, we also examine challenges and societal dynamics yet awaiting the transformative light of liberation.

As we read the Haggadah, the story, and seek meaning in the enslavement and liberation of our ancestors, we consider the many enslavements that occurred throughout history and we turn our awareness toward the suffering hearts of those who languish in the bitterness of slavery even today.

Our ancient liberation occurred in view of the entire world as a compelling sign of an eventual universal liberation. Our powerful liberation story, with its miraculous and mythic dimensions, empowers us to anticipate and work toward a time of universal freedom.

Passover is not meant merely to be a sentimental retelling of an ancient story. It is a remembrance, awakening us to the sacred nature of freedom and requiring us to examine freedom’s condition in our time and place. This Passover we will have unique opportunities to gain new insight and inspiration from our Festival of Freedom. TBI will host an exhibit from the Oregon Jewish Museum and from the Fair Housing Council of Oregon. These exhibits, “Unlearning Discrimination” examine the history of discrimination in Oregon. They expose the ugly expressions of bigotry that were etched into the laws of this land, scarring the lives of so many sufferers of awful degradations. They also reveal the progress made over the course of decades as unjust laws were overturned. The memory of those shameful laws serves as an embarrassment and a caution. It prods us to consider who among us still suffers bigotries that will some day be remembered as shameful oppression of people long awaiting freedom’s sacred blessings.

We enter this season with hope and faith that we are capable of achieving the promise of universal freedom as we do our share of the work and continue to tell our story.

Blessings for a joyful and inspired Season of Our Freedom.

Rabbi Yitzhak