Jews have known their fair share of suffering. Slavery in Egypt, Expulsion from Spain, Millions murdered in the Holocaust.
We have holidays, rituals and memorials for many of these events.
This week I was in Amsterdam and stopped at the Anne Frank Huis (house). It was a reminder of the troubles of our past. But, to me at least, it was also a testament to our present and future.
We are no longer enslaved to Pharaoh or Hitler. We enjoy relatively unprecedented freedom. But, it’s not just that we are less persecuted today. If that would be the case, then all we would have accomplished is going from negative territory back to ground zero.
But, the Torah has a proactive mission for us. Our mandate is to leave a holy imprint on the world.
As I stood at the Anne Frank house and saw hundreds of people from all walks of life come and walk away inspired to be better human beings, I realized the true nature of the Jewish people’s renaissance. It isn’t enough to say we survived.
Let’s look at the holidays. Pesach is not simply a time to remember the past. It’s a time to live actively as Jews. The Torah always connects our memory of slavery and emancipation to action, to doing more mitzvot.
Similarly, in this week’s parsha, Behar-Bechukotai, the Torah reminds us that we were slaves in Egypt. It doesn’t tell us this as historical fact. That would be redundant. Rather, it does so in the context of telling us about mitzvot. Some mitzvot, like Shemitta (the Sabbatical year) are between man and G-d. Others, like fair treatment of workers and the prohibition against usury and charging interest, are between man and his fellow.
Common amongst them is that they all remind us that we were slaves in Egypt. The Torah is signaling that true freedom is not simply the absence of forced labor or squalid conditions. Real liberty is accomplished by engaging in real work, the work of perfecting this world and making it a G-dly space.