Act on freedom Practical life training

RABBI GABI KALTMANN THE KING DAVID SCHOOL

I dare say most Jews would know why we eat matzah during Pesach.

Of course, doing so recognises that Pharoah reversed his decision on Moses’ request to “let my people go”.

As a result, he and his people were in such a hurry to leave that they couldn’t wait for the dough in the bread they were baking to rise.

The question I pose is why was that the case? Surely, after 210 years of slavery in Egypt, the Israelites should have properly arranged provisions for their future travels in the desert.

Matzah is more than a symbolic food we eat to commemorate our ancestors.

Rather, it serves to tell us that when it comes to setting oneself free, we don’t have time to wait (or waste).

The unleavened bread is effectively a metaphor signalling that we must do what we must do "now" – we must make that decision that we have been avoiding.

So it is that Pesach is a time to change our behaviour and bad habits for the better.

When the Israelites fled Egypt, they were freed from their servitude as slaves, but true liberty is an internal voyage.

Holocaust survivor and psychologist Victor Frankl in his book Man's Search For Meaning defined freedom as "to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances … to choose one’s own way”.

So, we shouldn’t allow ourselves to be trapped in a “quasi-Egypt”. We need to unburden ourselves of self-imposed restraints and those applied to us by others, as long as doing so is for the greater good.

On their journey of self-discovery, Year 9 students are participating in a signature program for the school year, named Nitzan (bud).

It is designed to teach them practical life skills.

Each Wednesday begins with “kick start” – jogging, yoga, gym exercises or drawing. Students eat breakfast –cooked by their peers – together. This term the cohort has already learnt how to unblock toilets, change a washer, sew buttons and clothes, knit, repair bicycles, make solar-powered lights, use a lawn mower, build with wood and make coffee with a commercial espresso machine.

The program also includes selfdefence training, basic first aid, rudimentary car maintenance and money management.

Among special projects, they have received instruction in how to build a pinball machine and a deck for the school’s treehouse.