Reflection
The First Thing God Wants Us To Know
The very first thing God tells us about himself at Sinai is this : “ I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt .” God tells us that , before telling us not to steal and not to kill , before telling us to observe the Sabbath day and not to worship other gods . It is as if God thinks we need to be reminded of the great favor done for us in order to be sure that we will reciprocate by observing God ’ s commandments .
“ I brought you out of the house of bondage ” is the first of the Ten Commandments . It commands us to know for all time that our God is a God of freedom , that the commandments God offers us are gifts , not burdens , that the acceptance of those commandments is not a form of selfdenial but a form of liberation . God does not want our gratitude ; God wants us to understand that nothing matters to God more than our freedom , and then to teach us that freedom depends upon law .
Tonight , at the great festival of our freedom , we are , all of us , from the youngest to the oldest , colleagues in the celebration of freedom . At the same time , we are partners in a Seder- which means order . We might have chosen to celebrate and remember our liberation with noisy carnivals ; others have . But we have been taught something different .
-Leonard Fein , author , social activist .
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