What Will We Do With Our Freedom?

Today is the first day of the week-long festival of Passover (Pesach), the Jewish holiday that recalls our deliverance from slavery in the land of Egypt. Last night, Jews all over the world gathered to retell the story, to celebrate, and to connect with generations past and future as we recalled and relived history, and recommitted ourselves to the hope and promise of days to come.

Today is also April 20th (4/20), a day on which those who are committed to pot smoking celebrate their beloved passtime. Why April 20th? I don't know. I've learned before, but I have forgotten. I won't be taking the time to learn again.

We (I'll lump anyone reading this together, for the purpose of this sentence) live our lives with incredible freedom and opportunity. We are free to express ourselves, live where we want, pursue our dreams, worship as we see fit, make most decisions about how we live our lives without interference. We live with incredible freedom, but certainly not in a perfect world. There are battles to be fought and our freedom puts the choices of which battles to pursue - and to what extent and by what means - in our hands.

We can use this day of celebrating justice and freedom to concern ourselves with ensuring that those blessings are bestowed upon every human being. Or we can use this day to glorify illegal drug use and campaign for the freedom smoke pot whenever and wherever we want. Or we can do neither.

ZiggyBackRiders, I beseech you, choose the first option (and if you can't see fit to do that, choose the third). Our freedom is wasted and incomplete if we can't use it to secure the same for others. (And our freedom is most certainly wasted if we use it to get wasted.)

Right now, not so very far from the land of Egypt, where my people were enslaved generations ago, people are experiencing the horrors that man's inhumanity to man makes possible. I don't know as much as I should about the situation in Darfur and I certainly haven't done as much as I should to change it. It is clear, however, that the freedom I celebrate on this Passover and the freedom I celebrate every July 4th and the freedom I celebrate every day that I live free is incomplete and is being wasted by me. Next Passover, I need to be able to say I've used my freedom to help. Not for me, but for my world and for all of the people, human beings just like me, who don't share the blessing of liberty that I enjoy today.

Below, please find a piece written by my friend Laurie, distributed to be shared at seders (traditional Passover meals) all over. I am honored to share it here...
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Seder for Sudan
The Passover Seder focuses on recounting the story of our oppression as Jews in Egypt. In even the most basic Hagadot it is clear that this yearly retelling, along with the symbolic foods that represent the bitterness and tears we felt during our journey to freedom, are tools to remind us that we were once oppressed, that we were enslaved, that we were not free because of our ethnicity, and that we have a duty to use our subsequent capacity for empathy to work for the freedom of others.

When reflecting on the oppression we withstood in ancient Egypt, it is natural to reflect on the devastation that Jews faced during the Holocaust. Tonight at our Seder we can turn our attention to a current and ever-intensifying genocide. In Darfur, the southern region of Sudan, more than 400,000 people have been killed based on their race since 2003. More than two and a half million are displaced refugees. The Sudanese government army and a government-sponsored militia attack entire villages of non-Arab Darfuris, usually simultaneously bombing from the air, poisoning water sources, and attacking with guns on the ground. Men defending the villages are tortured and slaughtered, and women and children are routinely and repeatedly raped.

Those who survive a village attack are then left to find their way to some semblance of safety, perhaps at a refugee camp in Chad. That journey, however, takes place across vast spans of desert with no roads, often no water, and the constant threat of being seen and attacked again.

“Lo taamod al dam réakha,” a Biblical commandment, means, “Thou shalt not stand idly by the shedding of the blood of thy fellow man.” It is easy to let the physical distance between our country and Darfur blur the harsh reality of the terror the Darfuri people are facing. It is easy to become immersed in our daily lives and forget that millions of people’s lives are being purposefully destroyed. The message of Passover tells us to reawaken to the pain and needs of others.

Each night of Passover, choose a way to speak out for the Darfuri people: Write an email, or even simply send a pre-written one, to your senators and representatives, to the President, or to your newspapers, stating that you want a full peacekeeping mission deployed, that you will not invest in companies or countries that fund the Sudanese government, and that you want to hear our leaders in the international community speaking out more often and with more force about this genocide. To learn more about actions to take, email petitions to sign, and companies and countries to boycott or protest, visit savedarfur.org.
This Passover, we can refresh our resolve and make a covenant with the Darfuri people, that we will stand up for their freedom from fear, from murder, and from torture. Again, please visit savedarfur.org to learn more and take action. Avadim Hayeinu—We once were slaves.
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In words that work for everyone, Jewish tradition tells us, "It is not your duty to complete the work, but neither are you free to ignore it." Riders, the world needs us!

Check back soon for more mundane matters including The New Adventures of Me and My Purple Car: The Georgia Caper.