Freedom, Beauty and Truth – Comments before Passover (coinciding with Torah portion VaYikra)
Passover is our holiday of freedom. Our tradition provides a wonderful insight on the nature of freedom through a play on words.
We find this wordplay in the Talmud, based on Exodus 31:16. That verse describes Moses coming down from Mt. Sinai with the Tablets of the Law. The verse tells us that that the tablets were the “act of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets.”
The Hebrew for “engraved on the tablets” in this verse is “harut al ha-luchot”. In the Talmud, tractate Eiruvin 54a, Rabbi Acha bar Ya’akov says, “Don’t read it as “harut” – “engraved on the tablets” – but rather read “heirut” – “freedom” (the two words are spelled the same in biblical Hebrew, which does not record vowels).
Rabbi Acha’s reading of the verse in the Bible, changes “the writing is engraved on the tablets” to “the writing is freedom on the tablets.”
The writing stands for the law of God, so put philosophically, Rabbi Acha’s statement would read, “The law will set you free.”
This interpretation becomes even deeper when we look at Proverbs chapter 3:3, “Let kindness and truth never leave you . . . write them on the tablet of your heart.”
Through our tradition’s granting of great liberty in interpreting the Bible, the word “writing” becomes “law of God,” engraved becomes “freedom” and tablet becomes “heart”. We are left with this interpretation: The of law is freedom on the heart, the law on your heart will set you free.
Let’s add another step. In our blessing over the reading of the Torah, we thank God for giving us a Torat Emet, a Teaching of Truth – and this truth will set us free.
Law is truth, engraved on our hearts, and the law/truth will set us free.
How can the law as truth set us free?
Think of the word “discipline,” from the Latin word for student. Discipline can refer to body of teaching, as in discipline of law. Discipline can also mean rigorous adherence to conduct that serves some vision, a disciplined person, as in a disciplined athlete.
In this sense, the key to freedom is discipline, which is a requirement for knowing the truth. A disciple, one who follows a discipline, knows the truth, because they train in the truth, and that training in truth sets you free. One of the words in the book of Proverbs for a discipline is actually the word “Torah.” “If you train in Torah, you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
The essential questions for Rabbi Acha in the Talmud “how does the law, as a discipline, set us free? Free from what? What truth is discovered in following a discipline?”
This question makes us inquire into the nature of freedom, an inquiry that Passover, our Festival of Freedom, calls us to do. There are at least two ideas of freedom that we work with. One idea is freedom as liberty; the liberty, in general, to do as you please, as long as you don’t actually cause harm to others. Freedom as liberty is enshrined in our Constitution. We are free to speak, to assemble, to write what we please, as long as we follow the law and don’t harm others.
Spiritual freedom, as opposed to political liberty, cuts entirely in the other direction. Freedom, as law and discipleship, does not have to do with rights, but with duties. Freedom in law and discipleship removes the inner impediments that keep us from following a discipline. Spiritual freedom means overcoming the resistance to act rightly.
The truth that one knows from discipline is a tough concept. In every discipline there are a set of laws, you might say, that you have to follow to acquire mastery. An excellent metaphor is dance. The mastery of dance sets the body free of its inherent limitations. A disciplined dancer can exemplify beautiful freedom.
As I am somewhat of a cultural plebe, when I think of great dance, I don’t think of the ballet, I think of the Lindy Hop. I can watch this little segment from the odd film “Hellzapopin” endless times:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkthxBsIeGQ&list=RDqkthxBsIeGQ#t=5
The dancers look free, exuberant, almost defying the clutch of earth’s gravity. Achieving that freedom in dance takes endless sessions of practice and rehearsal. Anyone who has mastered any physical discipline knows of the hours and hours it takes to free the body from its awkwardness and birth it into beauty. In general, beauty occurs in nature, but is achieved by human beings, achieved mostly through some mixture of will, skill, grace and suffering. Once you experience that mixture, through great discipline and mastery, you will come to know a truth that will set you free. You will experience what it is like, at least for a moment, like a bird on the wire, to be free.
Liberty is focused on other people not interfering with what I have a right to do, even though it may upset them. Spiritual freedom is focused on the self, the inner freedom to follow a law or discipline that will guide you to create beauty from your life, releasing it from the resistance and impediments within.
From a spiritual perspective, I focus on freedom as law. Laws of kindness, laws of thinking, laws of truth.
If you truly want to be free, follow the teaching of truth.
טז וְהַלֻּחֹת מַעֲשֵׂה אֱלֹהִים הֵמָּה וְהַמִּכְתָּב מִכְתַּב אֱלֹהִים הוּא חָרוּת עַל־הַלֻּחֹת:
