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Ravitz's Quiet Revolution: Liberty or freedom

Posted by Avraham Ravitz

Many of us cannot differentiate between the two similar concepts of liberty and freedom, but they are fundamentally different. While "freedom" is an expression associated with being let loose from enslavement, "liberty" is a term for a value in and of itself, which testifies to the essence of the honor of liberty.

For freedom there is a prerequisite of slavery.

For liberty, there are no prerequisites, and this is true for a country, a nation or an individual.

Surely, it is difficult to achieve liberty when slavery exists. But liberty can stand alone.

When we left Egypt, we were truly freed from slavery, but even more than that, we became bnei horin (free men), which is to say, we adopted the principle of "liberty."

Throughout a long history, we have had many periods of enslavement and denial of freedom, but we never lost our liberty. Because liberty is a spiritual value which testifies to the inner spiritual and independent world of every individual of the whole nation, even if we did not always have the freedom to express our liberty externally.

The nation of Israel has had tough periods of oppression and persecution, but our inner being as a people was never damaged. Because liberty accompanied us throughout the generations. This liberty was planted in us during the exodus from Egypt and the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. Therefore, in each and every generation man is obligated to see himself as though he "left Egypt."

As liberty is understood, it is an inner spiritual dimension of man, which includes all of the humane and positive values of man, which the Torah we received at Sinai revealed to us. When man succeeds in letting his values control his actions, he is more of a ben horin (free man).

Liberty is not expressed specifically in relation to fellow man and his surroundings; first and foremost, it is the expression of man to himself.

I suggest to my readers that they dedicate the holiday of Pessah - the holiday of liberty - to build up our inner worlds and to celebrate the honor of man with liberty, and freedom from everything that sweeps us away during our everyday lives in society, and from the obsessive involvement in the corruption, investigations, trials, wrangling, persecution, and joy of others' downfalls. To my sorrow, the society has been enslaving itself in to a way that does not contribute anything, and most certainly does not better society. This is not liberty, nor is it freedom. This is being carried away by the lowest emotions of man.

Let us seek grace for one another, and let us carry the banner of liberty this Pessah.