What is Jewish Freedom?

The Mishna¹ tells us that there is no free man except the one who engages in Torah study. Certainly, Torah brings us wisdom, truth, nobility, and maps our perfection in this world and the next. But it is a system that requires commitment, devotion, and the acceptance of the mastery of Another. How is this freedom?

In this article we will explore why a Torah life is truly free, and how we can then deeper understand our national journey mei’avdut l’cheirut – from bondage to freedom.

Free from What?

The commentators, such as the Tiferet Yisrael, explain that a Torah-true life liberates us from the constant lure of the physical world and the enslavement that is its pursuit. Rav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch writes: … A truly devoted study (of Torah) also makes us free, free from error, free from the temptations of the physical lusts… free from the crushing and degrading power of the… worries and troubles of daily living. ²

Materialism presents a lure that is ever-growing, as Chazal teach us: Whoever has a hundred, wants two hundred³. It is an insatiable, unreachable pursuit of something, the next thing, even more of that thing, and is by definition unattainable. To free ourselves from that bondage is to liberate our minds and resources to pursue enduring, meaningful assets.

The root of Mitzrayim is meitzar, constricted, narrow. The pasuk tells us that Bnei Yisrael did not first accept Moshe’s promise מקצר רוח⁴, from shortness of breath. Rashi explains that anguish causes the breath to come in spurts. They couldn’t breathe, and therefore they couldn’t hear him. So consumed were they with their tasks and fears that they could not think of an alternate reality.

Freedom in the western world is the unrestrained, uncoerced ability to navigate however one sees fit. There are usages like that in the Torah, such as when referring to the release of a slave. The word used in those contexts is not chierut, but chofesh, freeing. Chofesh is the removal of bondage to allow one his sovereignty. 

Our slavery robbed us of our autonomy, that is true, but it also robbed us of our mental sovereignty. In leaving Egypt, we liberated ourselves from the enslavement of the most absolute kind: enslavement of the mind. In accepting the Torah, we gained the tools necessary to use that freedom towards an end that might justify the free will we were given to mark our paths in this world. 

What is Cheirut?

Torah enables us to detach from servitude to materialism. But how is it itself, as a precise code of conduct, actually liberation?

Freedom in the western world is the unrestrained, uncoerced ability to navigate however one sees fit. There are usages like that in the Torah, such as when referring to the release of a slave. The word used in those contexts is not chierut, but chofesh, freeing. Chofesh is the removal of bondage to allow one his sovereignty. 

Cheirut, on the other hand, has a deeper layer of meaning. The pasuk tells us about the luchot  that Moshe brought down, “And the tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven (חרות) upon the tablets.”⁵ The Mishna learns from here our principle: Do not read חרות, graven, but rather חירות, free, for there is no free person except one who occupies himself withTorah study. 

Where do Chazal see a connection? Maharal explains: When writing, ink is applied on to parchment. Nothing has been changed in the material itself, only the form, the tzurah, was altered. By contrast, the words on the luchot were not written but engraved, made part of the very material. That sort of message is intrinsic to the medium; they are one and the same. 

Cheirut, therefore, is a freedom that expresses our most intrinsic selves. It is not only the removal of someone else’s control over our choices, it necessarily expresses the soul in the most absolute way. Our deepest desires shape our most fundamental distinguishable essence, and manifesting that in the world is the mark of cheirut. As the Baal Shem Tov taught, a free person is one who is where his will is.

Rav Moshe Schapiro said that ultimate freedom is to tap into the essential root will, the ani that lasts forever, and then channel that into this world.⁶ How does Torah enable us to live out our most basic being?

Free for What? 

The work in pursuit of the ultimate freedom is to remove all the blockages, to clear and polish the channels of will so they can burst forth cleanly and fully into action. First, though, we must understand our most fundamental desire. 

The pasuk in Kedoshim warns us to not put a stumbling block before the blind. Rambam comments: Anyone who reinforces a transgressor – who is spiritually blind, for he does not see the path of truth, because of the desires of his heart – transgresses a negative commandment⁷. Rambam is teaching us that a sinner is considered blind, and being a machshil, one who enables a transgression, is therefore a violation of this mitzvah. 

This is also Rambam’s rationale for the ruling⁸ that a man who refuses to give his wife a get should, if there is a qualified beit din, be given lashes until he acquiesces. Although a get given by force is invalid, Rambam is using the halachic assumption that the Jewish soul desires to do the right thing, and when it sins it is merely blinded and confused by its more superficial wants. 

It is every Jew’s deepest desire to attach himself to Hashem, to live in the world according to His will. Any distracting or conflicting desires are calls of the yetzer hara, staging for us the ability to make the choice to be free; that is, to choose to express our desire to live by emet. 

Every good choice we make and mitzvah we do is a microcosm of the exodus, and a reaffirmation of naaseh v’nishma, our total acceptance of the Torah. Every time we use our freedom of choice we strengthen it, giving new levels of meaning to yetziat mitzrayim. And every day when we remember our liberation story in the shema, we can tap into the ability to choose our own destiny with the unobstructed, clear-headed freedom to do what we really want to do. 

1. Avot 6:2 ↩︎
2. The Hirsch Pirkei Avot, Mishna 6:2 ↩︎
3. Kohelet Rabba 1:3 ↩︎
4. Shemot 6:9 ↩︎
5. Shemot 32:16 ↩︎
6. Rebbetzin Ruthie Halberstadt, Pesach: Freedom of Speech ↩︎
7. Hilchot Rotzeach 12:14 ↩︎
8. Hilchot Gerushim 2:20 ↩︎