Freedom order
We are on the eve of Passover, the festival of freedom. As with all genuine foundation myths, the roots of the story of the exodus from Egypt cannot be clearly traced historically.
What is important and certain, however, is this: For centuries, the Passover Haggadah has inspired us to actively seek and redefine our personal freedom each year - for ourselves, in our relationships, communities and far beyond for our fundamental social values of freedom, responsibility and self-determination. Perhaps the liberating Exodus message is the real gift of Jewish tradition to humanity.
The major challenges currently facing the world in spring 2025 often affect our Migwan community directly, given the diverse and wide-ranging relationships of our members. What should we be guided by? A contemporary guideline is offered by “On Freedom”, the latest book by historian Timothy Snyder, incidentally the follow-up to his classic work “On Tyranny”, which draws deeply on the above-mentioned freedom tradition and recalls a positive freedom that goes beyond individual freedom: “True freedom isn`t so much freedom from as freedom to - the freedom to thrive, to take risks for futures we choose by working together. Freedom is the value that makes all other values possible.”
So what we need is a liberal order, which we constantly seek and renew together. It is significant that “Seder” means “order”. We all know that: Every Passover evening proves to be a balance of clearly defined procedure and yet ultimately creatively reinterpreted implementation. That's how it should be: The Passover Seder as an annually recurring, age-old and yet always new exercise in freedom.
Peter Jossi, Migwan President
