JN Thoughts

A MONTHLY MIX OF IDEAS

Redemption And Emancipation

Southfield

I

n a few nights we will be
sitting around our seder
tables drinking copious
amounts of wine or grape juice
and eating fragile, dry matzot
with a smattering of horserad-
ish or lettuce. We will have a
beautiful table surrounded by
family and guests dressed in
their festive best. The highlight
of the evening will undoubt-
edly be the conversation, the dialogue of
the Hagaddah.
We will tell the story of the exodus as it
has been told every Pesach for thousands
of years by millions of Jewish families in
hundreds of countries. But at some point
after the karpas has been eaten, the afiko-
men hidden and the Mah Nishtanah (The
Four Questions) asked, we may begin to
wonder when we're going to get to that
delicious pot roast whose aroma is tan-
talizing our senses, or at least reach the
matzah marathon.
Underlying this thought is the question:
"What does this whole thing have to do
with me?"
Yes, it is great that our forefathers were
taken out of slavery some 3,300 years and
we should be thankful to God for that
most magnanimous of acts. But how do

I apply that to my life here
in Michigan, where the
Big 3 automakers are defi-
nitely more interesting than
ancient Egyptians?
Let's try to delve a little
deeper into what Mitzrayim
(Egypt) was really all about.
Through that we can come
to comprehend what the
Jew's slavery represented
and, hopefully, we will
discover a way to make the
Exodus meaningful for us.
The Hebrew word Mitzrayim has the
same letters as the word maitzarim, which
means boundaries or limitations. The
sages tell us that a slave never escaped
Egypt. This was not because they had
soldiers patrolling every square foot of the
border; rather the type of subjugation the
slaves underwent didn't end with physical
servitude, but incorporated an element of
psychological subjugation.
The slave in Egypt couldn't see any real-
ity for himself other than his current state.
He was stuck in the "borders" of limita-
tion set up by the culture of Egypt, one
that told you that whoever you were was
exactly who you would continue to be with
no chance of change.
This mentality is antithetical to the
Jewish approach. We believe that one is

given free will and always has the ability
to elevate himself above his current limi-
tations, to burst out from the "borders" of
his current state.
When God took us out of Egypt, the
exemption from physical bondage was a
minor part of the exodus. The major com-
ponent was the freeing of our minds, the
gift of our newfound ability to see beyond
our current state to our world of possibil-
ity.
This idea is something we struggle with
here in Michigan just as our forefathers
did in Egypt. The many who profess that
humans are just a mechanism acting out
whatever was solidified in their subcon-
scious from ages 0-5, and that they can't
break out of it; the society that tells us that
to sin is only natural and that it's under-
standable because we can't help ourselves
— these people are the Pharaoh of today,
trapping us in a modern Egypt because
they limit our ability to grow and develop.
Studies show that when people believe
they can change their situation, they are
much more likely to do so. Theories of
predetermination, so pervasive in our
society, are the very ethos from which we
were saved at the exodus from Egypt.
So in every generation, despite the fact
that the popular notion may be one of
reckless action, justified immorality and
dishonesty, we need to re-experience the

exodus, with its message of human abil-
ity, its encouragement to transcend the
shackles of our current state and to soar
into greatness.
So, as you sip your steaming hot borsht,
or drink that cup Numero Quatro (No.
4), or even during the dialogue of the
Hagaddah, take a moment to step back
and think about the fact that you are free
to be as great as you dream of being.
You are not shackled by your foibles,
vices or bad habits, but have the ability to
overcome adversity and grow and change
into a better and different person.
Remember this timeless message of
Pesach — the redemption, not just from
physical subjugation, but emancipation
from emotional, psychological and spiri-
tual barriers.
L'shana Haba'a Be'Yerushalayim! May
we all celebrate next Passover, together in
Jerusalem! El!

Rabbi Leiby Burnham, LMSW, is an associ-

ate director of the Jean and Theodore Weiss

Partners in Torah Program of Yeshiva Beth

Yehudah, a Southfield-based program dedi-

cated to spreading Jewish knowledge to people

of all ages and walks of life. More than 600

members of the Detroit Jewish community

benefit from their educational program and

learning experiences. E-mail Rabbi Burnham at
rlbc yby.org.

Middle East Accuracy Now

Atlanta

T

here is no question
that Israeli settle-
ments in the West
Bank are a major obstacle on
the road to peace between
Israel and Arabs. Hundreds
of thousands of Israelis live
on land that much of the
world thinks belongs to the
Palestinians. Sooner or later,
Israel must resolve those settle-
ments' status.
That resolution will not be easy. Neither
absolutist position — Israel holding all
the land west of the Jordan River or Israel
withdrawing to the pre-1967 borders — is
reasonable or realistic.
Whatever you think about Israel's uni-
lateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip
in 2005, a similar effort can't work in the
West Bank. There are too many people
over too wide an area too determined not
to be moved.
If Prime Minister Ehud Olmert pushes

ahead with some kind of
disengagement, we would
have to view it as the last act
of a politician desperate to
hold power.
The bottom line is that
we can look forward to long,
painful negotiations. As
much as possible, we need
to base decisions on facts.
So it's disappointing to see
the group Peace Now pour
emotional gasoline on the
fire with a grossly inaccurate report last fall,
then stand by that report in the face of the
facts.
Mainstream news media around the
world jumped on Peace Now's report on
"Breaking the Law in the West Bank" in
November, in which the organization
claimed that "a large proportion of the
settlements built on the West Bank are
built on privately owned Palestinian land"
in violation of Israeli law, particularly a
1979 Supreme Court decision.
Among other findings, Peace Now

reported that Palestinians privately own
nearly 40 percent of the land on which set-
tlements were built and that 86.4 percent
of the largest settlement, Ma'ale Adumim,
was on private Palestinian land.
Coming at a time when Jimmy Carter's
book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid
was stirring up debate about the West
Bank, the Peace Now report was a clear
blow to Israel internationally and in
America.
Well, the Israeli government belatedly
released accurate figures this month, and
as Israeli Civil Administration spokesman
Capt. Zidki Maman told the Jerusalem
Post: "The first report they released had
major mistakes."
The 40 percent figure for private
Palestinian land underlying settlements
is now down to 32.4 percent; even that
figure depends on the inclusion of out-
posts that the government itself considers
illegal. Thus, Peace Now counts 131 of 162
settlements and outposts to be built at
least partially on private Palestinian land,
while the government recognizes only 120

legal settlements. For dozens of outposts,
the government may deserve criticism for
not clearing out illegal squatters, but it's
misleading to include those areas in the
overall statistics.
The most shocking error, however, has
nothing to do with semantics: Ma'ale
Adumim isn't built on 86.4 percent
Palestinian land; it's 0.5 percent.
Instead of apologizing, a Peace Now
spokesman told the Post that any mistakes
were the fault of the Israel Defense Forces
for not releasing information in a timely
manner, and Americans for Peace Now
issued a press release proclaiming that the
official data confirmed the initial report.
By spreading shaky figures as facts,
then defending those numbers rather than
acknowledging mistakes, Peace Now has
undermined the goal stated by its name
and put its own prestige far above the
cause of peace. E

Michael Jacobs is managing editor of the

Atlanta Jewish Times, sister publication of the
Detroit Jewish News.

March 29 • 2007

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