Die Leo Baeck Foundation

Passover (Pessach)

Since the early beginnings of our religion, the Spring Festival has been celebrated as the Festival of our Freedom. To celebrate it, we put on our tables the Bread of Misery. At times this Bread of Woe has not been much more than a symbol, whilst, alas, at others it was very real. But at all times the Festival and its token have spoken a plain language. They have reminded us that there cannot be freedom without sacrifice. To be free means above all to be true and faithful to one's own self. And to be true to one's own self means to be prepared to forgo and to deny oneself many a thing if the duty commands.

There is a civic freedom, every individual's right to his own personal and private sphere of life into which the community, the State, may not intrude without compelling reasons. There is a political freedom, the right of the individual to share in the administration and the government of the community to which he belongs. For continuity and strength this twofold freedom relies on a third freedom— moral freedom. Moral freedom is the determination of the individual to create from within a set of moral values and to apply it. Moral freedom is the privilege—and also the obligation—to harbour and to show this spirit the outcome and blessing of which is faithfulness. Wherever men live in this moral freedom, civic and political 'freedom will truly keep alive.

It is to this moral, this spiritual freedom that we devote the Spring Festival. We remember and we confess to the roots of this freedom which has gained strength from the sacrifices of the faithful. We realise there is a reward for our keeping faith with Judaism and in making sacrifices for its sake, that there is a blessing bestowed on those who yearn for the true freedom and who are willing to undergo hardship to-day for the sake of the morrow. This, then, is our Passover.

Leo Baeck

Aus: AJR Information, 1. Jg., Nr. 4 (April 1946), S. 27.