When It’s Time to Run Away
Have you ever felt the need to runaway, to escape? Is there something in your life that you need to runaway from? How do you know if you need to escape?
A personal family story:
My Grandfather lived in Poland when Germany attacked Poland during WWII. With the Germans advancing him and his father, sister and brother moved towards the Russian border. When Poland was split between the Germans and the Russians they ended up on the Russian side. Since they were Polish citizens they were sent, together with many other Polish Jews, to Siberia to a labor camp. Now my grandfather, his family and most of the group were very observant and revered the holiness of the Shabbat. They were horrified to find out that the Russians had no intention of giving them any break for Shabbat. When someone in the group tried to protest he was immediately put to death. With no other choice they worked Shabbat. As they worked they prayed by heart, sang Shabbat songs and tried their best to create a Shabbat atmosphere. This went on for years, finally they were released and they traveled to the south part of Russia where it was safer and many Jews were gathering there. Since my grandfather was young he was drafted by the government to continue working in a labor camp in the area, and once again he was forced to work on Shabbat. One Friday night he ran away from the labor camp and walked the whole night until he was able to rejoin his family. When he arrived they were shocked. It was very dangerous to run away from your labor camp, he was now a fugitive and would have to live in hiding and fear. His father asked him why he ran away. He answered that he had forgotten that it was Shabbat, and then he knew he had to run away. He stayed with his family and joined the effort to help getting Jews out of Europe and was very successful in saving thousands of lives as well as his family and his own.
So why did he run away? Shabbat obviously was very important to him, but yet he worked on Shabbat, what happened that made him risk his life?
When he was working on Shabbat he knew who he was and who knew that it was Shabbat, but when he forgot it was Shabbat he realized that he was beginning to forget who he was and he knew it was time to run away.
When you know who you are and what you stand for, what you believe in and what your life is all about then you are free, even if you don’t have the liberty to live that way.
When you start to lose your identity, when you begin to forget who you are and what you are here for, then it is time to run away. To run back home and reconnect to your source, your heritage, your tradition and your purpose.
Now the connection to Passover; At the Seder we read why we eat matzah, that the Jews were rushed out of Egypt and we did not have enough time to let the dough rise and so they became matzah. On a deeper level the Jews were running away. Collectively the Jews were at a critical state, they were beginning to forget who they were and what their purpose here on earth was. They had to run away to save their soul.
This year as we eat our matzah we too need to examine our lives and determine if there are areas of our life that we need to run away from as they are causing us to forget who we are. We need run away from the slavery of our own minds, hearts, fears and materialism. We need to run home, back to our childhood, back to a time when our identity was clear, when we knew who we were as a people, as a nation, as Jews.
Until we bring about the time of Moshiach, about which it states that we not run from our current exile but rather we will leave in a relaxed and comfortable way, after reconnecting with our source we will have no need to run, we will be home. And that is one of the reasons why we recline at the Seder. Reclining means that we are comfortable in our own skin, not uptight like sitting. We recline to show that we are free, truly relaxed and comfortable in our own Jewish identity and purpose. May we all truly experience this together and forever be free of all those things that we need to run away from.
Shabbat Shalom and Happy Passover
Rabbi Zalman Marcus