The pandemic, Passover and the meaning of freedom : vimarsan

The pandemic, Passover and the meaning of freedom
Ruhi Sophia Motzkin Rubenstein
© Chris Pietsch/The Register-Guard
Certified Nursing Assistant Celene Eldrich, left, a volunteer for CAHOOTS, waits to screen guests for health concerns at the Egan Warming Center's Springfield, Oregon location in March as the first signs of COVID-19 began to appear in the area.
In just two weeks, the holiday of Passover will begin. It is the foundational Jewish celebration of the exodus from slavery to liberation. This year, it coincides almost exactly with the first state-wide coronavirus “stay-at-home” order.  
As we approach this holy celebration and somber anniversary, I am pondering the meaning of freedom. Freedom is not the right to pursue our own desires no matter the cost to others. In my sacred tradition, the Passover story teaches that the Israelite people were not freed in order to do whatever they wanted. Rather, the people were freed from a pharaoh to create a holy community accountable to a higher law, a law that they received at Mount Sinai only a few chapters after leaving Egypt. 

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