Slaves? Maybe. “House of Bondage”? Never Again

How can it be that we say in the Hagadah “Now we are slaves” if we call Pesach the “Festival of our freedom”? Rav Moshe Avigdor Amiel explained that the answer is found the first line of the Ten Commandments: “I am the Lord your God who took you out from the Land of Egypt from the house of bondage”.

There is a difference between “Avadim” slaves, and “beit avadim”, house of bondage. There is bondage of the body and bondage of the spirit. When a slave is unable to own property and it all belongs to the master- that is slavery of the body. A slave has no autonomous will; he can only reflect the will of his master. The master’s position of authority not only permeates all of the slave’s actions, but even his thoughts as well. The slave’s main thought is how he can find favor in the eyes of his master; to gain the master’s approval. He has no independent identity. As a result of this mindset, the slave slowly shifts from fear of his master to love. (reflected in the verse at beginning of Mishpatim “Ahavti et Adoni”).

It is this mindset that the Torah calls “Beit Avadim”. The bondage of the psyche. A slavery that permeates one’s heart and soul, ideas and feelings.  This is the degree to which we were slaves in Egypt. Not just Avaadim, but trapped in “Beit Avadim”. After the Exodus and our receiving the Torah, we will never be trapped like that ever again to another human. We will develop similar patterns and feelings in our role as servants of Hashem.

The slavery to which we may still be subjected to is an external pressure, but no human can ever have a claim to our essence. Today a person may have a hold on our body or a hold on our possessions but no one has a hold on our soul.

God Himself told us at Mt. Sinai that He took us out of “beit avadim”. Although the entire Torah was given to us by God, there is a special status to that which we heard directly from Hashem Himself. What we heard from God is impossible for us to forget and impossible to be revoked, without exception.

It is therefore embedded in our DNA for Jews to love freedom, and despise any type of slavery or oppression in any form. History shows that Jews are always in the forefront of the great freedom movements – throughout the world and at all times. It is “established in our blood and our souls from the day we stood at Mount Sinai”- to love and fight for freedom- for all.

The Talmud teaches (Kidushin 22b) that it was at Sinai that God said “You are only servants to Me, and slave to no other human.” Rav Amiel explained that every Jew heard this, and even those Jews who heard nothing else and who keep nothing else internalized this mandate of freedom from Hashem They live this value in every facet of their lives. 

This is a permanent characteristics of Klal Yisrael: love of a principled freedom. As the Torah tells us, once we have experienced freedom - there’s no going back!