Freedom and its Discontents

"This Year we are slaves. Next year may we be Free Men." This quote has been part of every traditional Jewish Passover Seder I've ever been to (with the occasional language-adjustment for gender) and I always wonder what it means. Of course, we could take it literally and say "these were words uttered by former slaves, and we repeat them so as to honor them, as a matter of tradition." and that would still be cool and meaningful, since now we're goin on the chronological equivalent of 6 Stacks worth of Jewish muthahf*ckn history. #chea. #we still here.

But I think another perspective is to see it as a challenge to who we are as people TADAY. I think of the Buddha, and the idea of "liberation from suffering." Enlightenment is supposed to be freedom, so non-enlightenment must be slavery, albeit a form of slavery that is shared by nearly everybody. #"health consists in having the same diseases as one's neighbors" #the Matrix. in other words, we are still slaves in the Scarface sense: "you know why? bcuz you don't have the guts to be who you wanna be." #that's the bad guy.

so every Passover Seder, we acknowledge that we are less than free. but what is freedom? what is enlightenment? iono. but i think it's like the lyrics from the theme song from "Grease": "I solve my problems and i see the light...we start believing now that we can be who we are." (other deceptively deep lyrics from this underrated song include "only real is real...we got to be what we feel....this is the life of illusion.")

in conclu, at this time of year J-Crews everywhere gather to, at the very least, articulate that we aspire to something more. Or, at the very, very least, that we are aware that there is something more than our lives as we are currently living them.

there's another quote that's part of every traditional Seder: "In every Generation, each person is obligated to view themselves as if they personally had come out of Egypt [and from slavery]." why's that? bcuz only a former slave can understand the importance of being free.