Rabbi Charles P. Sherman
April 29, 2005
Do We Really Want Freedom?
We are almost at the end of Passover. Tonight begins the last day for us Reform Jews. Passover is the season of our freedom. We rehearse the Exodus from Egypt, including the terrible years of enslavement which preceded the Exodus, then we celebrate freedom.
On the surface, it appears that freedom is the goal for everyone. Who would prefer to be a slave rather than to be free? Surely people would rather be independent than be ordered around and controlled by others – or so we think at first blush. But I am not so sure. I would like to suggest tonight that there are more people than we realize who do not really want to be free, because they know that with freedom there comes – as part of the same package – responsibility. Nor is this a new phenomenon.
How else can we explain the fact that all during the days of their 40 year journey through the wilderness, whenever they came to a difficult situation, there were always some Israelites who cried out for "the good old days" when they were slaves in Egypt and who wanted to turn around and go back there.
How else can you explain the fact that the Torah has to provide special legislation to cover the case of the man who wants to remain a slave? You remember the passage in Exodus where a person says to his master that he does not want to go free. You take that servant's ear and you pierce it to the door as a sign of disgrace. Then he may remain as a slave forever. That was not a theoretical case; it was a response to real-life situations.
How else can you explain the fact that there are so many in our time who try desperately, in the phrase made famous by the psychologist Erich Fromm to, "escape from freedom"?
In order that we may better understand what escape from freedom means and what its attraction is, I want to study with you tonight three examples from modern life and literature, for which I am grateful to Rabbi Jack Riemer. I admit that these three cases may be extreme, but because they are extreme they help to make the phenomenon clear.
The first example comes from Israeli fiction. It is the story of a squad of Israeli soldiers on patrol duty during the War of Independence, spending what starts out as a very boring day. Then they spot an Arab shepherd dozing in the fields. Just to pass the time away, the soldiers decide to go get him. They surround him from all four sides, and before the half asleep man has a chance to realize what is happening, they jump him. They rough him up a bit and question him about the number of men and the number of weapons that are in his village. But it soon becomes fairly clear that the man is a moron, and that he probably does not have any useful information.
So then the question arises: What should they do with him? They do what all soldiers like to do: they kick the question upstairs. They call headquarters and report that they have captured an Arab who may, or may not, have some useful information. Headquarters decides that the shepherd should be brought in for further questioning. And so three of the soldiers are given the assignment of taking the shepherd back to town.
The Arab shepherd is tied hand and foot and thrown into the back of the jeep. Two of the men ride in the front seat, and one, who is the narrator of the story, rides in back with the shepherd. For the two men in front, this assignment is a lark. It is a way of getting back to town, back to women, entertainment and civilization, and without it counting as leave time! So all the way they entertain themselves with bawdy songs and by speculating on what they will do when they get back to town.
But the soldier in the back seat is in a very different mood. As he looks down at the confused, bewildered shepherd who is lying on the floor of the jeep, the thought enters his mind: this man is a human being. He has a name, and perhaps a wife, and maybe children. Those children must be going out of their minds right now with anxiety as they wait for him to come back from the fields, as they wonder and worry about what has happened to him.
The rest of the story takes place within the mind of this soldier. As they ride through the desert on the way back to headquarters, he keeps debating with himself over what they should do. He feels certain in his heart that this shepherd is no spy and that he has no information of any value; but the soldier also knows that he may get himself into big trouble if he interferes. He worries that if they take this man to headquarters, that they may be changing the whole course of his life. The man will likely be imprisoned, just in case. It may be who knows how long before he is released. By then his family will probably have joined the stream of refugees who are fleeing the country every day. The family may scatter; the man may never see them again.
The soldier knows that this man's fate and the fate of his family are in his hands, that by what he does or by what he does not do, he will determine their future. He tries to persuade himself that he is not responsible, but he knows that he is. So he goes back and forth, back and forth, in his mind between the temptation to do something and the fear of the consequences if he does. Perhaps he ought to reach forward, tap the driver on the shoulder, interrupt the singing and suggest that they let this poor fool go.
But what if they laugh at him and think he is soft-headed? Worse yet, what if they were to insist on carrying out their orders, and what if they were to report his suggestion? That would get him into trouble. He could be court-marshaled for interfering with orders. But, on the other hand, what is this whole war all about, and what do all its fancy slogans mean, if a man cannot take a single step to save the life of a fool that he knows is harmless?
Back and forth he goes, weighing all the arguments, pro and con, trying to persuade himself that he is only a soldier and therefore not responsible, yet knowing in his heart that he is responsible. Back and forth he goes between his desire to do what he feels is right and his fear of the consequences. Back and forth he goes as the jeep rides on through the desert as the sun sets. On this note, with the sun gradually setting and darkness coming on, and the soldier still unable to decide, the story ends.
The story is called "The Prisoner", and the question which it raises in the mind of the reader is: WHICH ONE IS THE PRISONER? Is it the shepherd or is it the soldier who cannot bring himself to do what he knows is right? Is it the shepherd who is bound hand and foot, or is it the soldier who is bound in other ways? The soldier may try to rationalize this inability to act by blaming the system, or blaming the other men in the jeep, or blaming the orders from headquarters, but deep down in his heart, he knows that he, and he alone, is ultimately responsible for what he does or does not do. The real prisoner in this story is not the shepherd but the soldier who is unable to let him go.
Our second example is a more complex one. It comes from Peter Berger, the great sociologist and student of human nature. Berger has made a study of the way capital punishment is carried out in certain countries. And he finds that from beginning to end, there is a complex network of devices whose purpose it is to enable those who are responsible for what happens to deceive themselves into believing that they are not.
First, the jury in a capital case is always instructed that its only purpose is to determine the facts of the case. This is so that they can tell themselves afterwards that it was not they who determined the verdict. All they did was determine the facts . . . someone else decided what punishment one who is guilty of these facts must pay.
The judge in such a case always prefaces his verdict with the pious statement that his role is only to apply the law, as it is found in the statute books. This is so that he too can comfort himself afterwards with the claim that he is not the one responsible for this man's death.
The firing squad, which carries out the capital punishment in some cultures, has a very curious custom, with which it can deceive itself. One of the rifles, no one knows which one, is loaded with blanks. This is so that afterwards each one can quiet his conscience by thinking: perhaps I fired the blank. If so, then I am not the one responsible for this man's death.
In medieval times, the self-deception took on a religious form. The sword with which the executioner beheaded the prisoner carried inscribed upon it the words, "Thou, O Lord, art this man's judge." What this meant, stripped of its fancy theological language, was that the executioner could comfort himself by putting the responsibility for his deed onto God. He was only God's agent, so don't blame him. God did it.
Today, we have death by lethal injection, and we kid ourselves that this is painless. We are not causing this human being, who the system has determined deserves to die, an inhumane end.
The sum total of all these fictions is that the jury didn't kill this man, the judge didn't kill this man, the executioner didn't kill this man, and yet the man is dead! No one is responsible, or, at least, no one wants to take the responsibility.
Is it really true that the judge, the jury, and the executioner have no freedom, and no responsibility, as they would like to believe? The truth is that each had an alternative, if they were willing to take it. The jury could have found the man innocent, or, if they really believed deeply that capital punishment is wrong, they could have refused to serve on the jury. The judge is not a robot who has no choice but to mechanically apply the punishment that is found in the law book. He has, at the very least, the freedom not to be a judge.
The members of the firing squad need not hide behind the fiction that each one of them had the blank. They have the option of accepting the responsibility for what they do. And surely, the medieval executioner had the freedom, if he was willing to exercise it, of avoiding the blasphemy of blaming God for what he was doing.
If these people wish to do what they do, let them; but at least they ought to have the honesty not to pretend that they are prisoners of the rules and that they do not have the freedom to disobey, and that therefore they do not have responsibility for what they do.
One last example: There are many kinds of prisons in this world, and those who want to escape from freedom and responsibility can always find one. One of the most popular kinds of prison is the pressure to conform to the will of the majority, to do what everyone else does, so as not to be thought different from others.
The suburbs can be a kind of a prison. The community or neighborhood sets standards and demands conformity from those who live within them. And yet, no matter how close knit the community may be, and no matter how rigid its standards are, there is still a measure of freedom, and therefore of responsibility for every person who lives there.
That is the point of Philip Roth's short story, "Eli The Fanatic." Do you remember that story? It was one of Roth's first. It appeared in the collection called "Goodbye Columbus", back in the fifties when Roth was just getting started. Those were the years when suburbia also was just getting started, and people were learning how to adjust to this new kind of living.
Eli Peck, the main character in the story, is a prosperous attorney lawyer, who lives in one of the fashionable sections of Westchester. Into this community of newly arrived, upper middle class Jews and long established non-Jews, comes of all things, a Yeshiva! A group of European immigrants buys an old estate and converts it into a school and a home for children orphaned by the Holocaust. The Jewish community becomes terribly distressed and alarmed by this invasion of strangely dressed foreigners, and they turn to Eli, whose legal expertise is zoning, to help them get rid of these people.
Eli goes to the Yeshiva several times in order to persuade these refugees to move away peaceably, but each time he comes away with an increasing sense of anxiety and guilt over what he is doing. These people seem calmer and wiser than he is, and his visits to threaten them turn out to be occasions on which they instruct him. He is increasingly uncomfortable with the knowledge that he is involved in driving out these human beings, who have already been driven out enough overseas, people who, but for his grandparents' decision to come to this country two generations ago, might very well be him and his children. Eli shows signs of strain, and although his wife and his neighbors have glib psychiatric explanations for his unrest, these do not satisfy him at all.
One day, Eli takes half a dozen of his own well-tailored, fancy suits and brings them to the Yeshiva, hoping that if the rabbis will only put on modern clothing when they come to town, that this will placate the community and bring peace. But the next day, the rabbi brings Eli a set of his clothes, his long black outfit, in exchange. This is not someone who will accept charity or make compromises with his faith.
Eli is caught between the pressure from his neighbors who want these immigrant Jews out and the pressure from inside himself, and he finally has a breakdown. The breakdown comes on the day that his first child is born. It manifests itself in an uncontrollable urge to put on these strange foreign clothes, which he knows in some vague way that he does not fully understand are a part of his heritage and his identity, to go see his baby for the first time.
He puts on the kapota and the shtreimel, and then he hesitates for just a moment. If he goes down the main street of this fancy town wearing them, he knows it will forever brand him as peculiar and will alienate him forever from his neighbors.
Should he do it? Or not? Then he decides to take the walk, because, as he puts it: "If you choose to be crazy, then you're not crazy. It's when you don't choose, that you're lost."
Sometimes the only way in which a human being can express his freedom is by such a dramatic gesture. In an insane society, the person who refuses to conform may seem queer, but he may actually be morally healthier than the one who acquiesces to evil with the eternally popular excuse: ‘after all, what can I do?'
These are three different stories of escape from freedom and responsibility. One comes from military life, one grows out of the judicial system, and one comes from life in suburbia. I believe that what we see in these three examples exists in much less dramatic fashion in other places as well. The job interviewer who says to him or herself: ‘I really ought to hire this applicant despite his color or despite her sexual orientation, but I will get into trouble with my boss if I do.' That HR specialist is denying his responsibility, compromising her freedom.
The individual who says ‘I shouldn't really belong to a club that discriminates, but what will the others say? Besides, it is a place where I can make good business contacts and what would they think of me?' That individual is a prisoner of the others.
The business owner who says ‘I would like to run my business honestly, but how can I when my competitors don't,' is a prisoner of his or her competitors.
The parent who says ‘I'd really like to set some standards for my kids, but what can I do if the other parents don't?', is a prisoner of the other parents.
We are all prisoners to the extent that we let others determine what we should do and how we should live. So what is the Jewish judgement on all of this? I believe that Passover reminds us that if we play it safe, it is at the cost of our souls. We cannot really have dignity without freedom, and we cannot have freedom without responsibility. The Jewish judgement on all of this is found in that passage in the Book of Exodus about the man who says that he does not want to go free, that he wants to remain a slave.
It is a tempting thing to do. After all, if you are a slave, you don't have to make any decisions. Someone else tells you when to get up and what to eat and what to do and what to wear and when to go to sleep. No wonder that some people opted for slavery. And yet the Torah says that anyone who chooses to be a slave instead of a free man shall have his ear pierced in disgrace. His ear shall be pierced, say our sages, because the person repudiates what he heard at Sinai. "Unto Me shall the Israelites be slaves, to Me and to no one else, declares God."
The Jewish judgement which is underscored each year at this season is that freedom is the will of God, although it comes at the cost of having to accept responsibility. Freedom is the duty and the dignity of the human being. Freedom is what makes us human, and it is what God has fashioned us to be, beginning with Adam and and Eve, whose distinguishing characteristic is free will – including the freedom to rebel against God – and the consequences of bearing responsibility for that freedom.
My friends, in military life or in civilian life, in the city or in the suburbs, a person cannot forever escape from freedom and from responsibility for what he does or does not do. At some point in her life, every individual must decide what is right and what to do. He or she must come to know the small but precious corner of our existence, which is not proscribed by others, which is not conditioned by heredity or environment or anything else, but within which he or she is free to decide. It is in that place that the human being truly lives. I don't care if you call it a soul or a conscience or whatever label you put on it – it is part of who we are as a unique, precious child of God.
And so Pesach is not just a holiday that celebrates the acquisition of freedom by our ancestors thousands of years ago. It is also the holiday on which we are reminded every year, in every generation, of how scary and yet how precious, how difficult and yet how indispensable freedom is for us, and for all who live on earth today as in days of old. It is the holiday on which we not only think of those who have no political freedom overseas, but when we think of all those who rationalize and give up their freedoms here at home. Pesach is the holiday on which we are reminded that freedom is the will of God and that, therefore, none of us should ever try to escape from freedom. Amen
I am indebted to Rabbi Jack Riemer for teaching me this lesson.
