"He who struck with his anger all the firstborn of Egypt, and removed his nation Israel from their midst to eternal freedom."

What is meant by "eternal freedom?" Didn't the Jews again become subjugated and enslaved in later eras?

Chasam Sofer writes that to understand this, we must first consider the true meaning of freedom. For there is many a well-to- do individual who is not really a free man at all. His mind is consumed with his business affairs through all of his waking hours. He is enslaved to his lifestyle, and cannot even contemplate a lessening of his standard of living. Such a man lives his life constantly preoccupied, working to ensure that he will always be able to maintain that which he has.

This is not true freedom!

Immediately after the plague of the firstborn, Hashem took the Jews out of Egypt and into the desert. The Jews went out trustingly, though the desert was a land filled with desolation: an arid land where nothing could grow and no one lived. Despite this, they trusted in Hashem. They relied on him to supply their needs, and they willingly accepted the life that He decreed upon them.

This acceptance paved the way for all future generations. Whatever circumstances the Jew finds himself in, even if he is beset by poverty or difficulties, he is always able to live by his faith; able to live with whatever Hashem provides him. This is the true freedom that we speak of in this passage. It may not be certain that we will never lose our freedom in the simple sense--in the way in which the world understands freedom. But the inner freedom that the Jew experiences goes with him wherever he goes. This is the freedom of the heart: to live our lives to the fullest, and to make use of all the capabilities which Hashem has provided us with, in whatever circumstances we find ourselves.

And this freedom we have never lost. We have taken it with us into every exile and every land--and no person can deprive us of it.

Copyright (c) 1997 by Rabbi Levi Langer

Courtesy of www.JewishAmerica.com