Chag Pesach sameach

could say and what we could think. The exodus segued into an unconditional acceptance of G-d’s laws – all 613 of them.

And yet, herein lies the answer to our dilemma. The Sages had no qualms in dubbing Pesach the festival of our “freedom”, because freedom does not mean the absence of boundaries. Freedom is not a licence for unbridled choices in life. It must be coupled with discipline and self-control. In the context of Judaism, we must embrace the freedoms of the modern era, while remaining true to the core values that have shaped us since our inception as a nation.

As Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks so succinctly puts it in his Haggadah, “Do not think that the story of Pesach ends with the exodus. It only begins there. It is one thing to believe in G-d when you need His help. It is another when you have already received it. Affluence, no less than slavery, can make us forget who we are and why”.

This should have ended the servitude and heralded an epoch of newfound liberties and self-determination – a time to escape the shackles of imposed dictates and become masters of our own destinies. But it didn’t.