Rabbi Knopf's Blog

The Talmud teaches that 30 days before Passover, we should start learning about the holiday and its meaning. In that spirit, I humbly offer "30 Days of Liberation." For each of the next 30 days, I will offer a brief message drawn from the wisdom of Passover. I hope you find these messages meaningful and inspiring. Feel free to share/forward.

30 Days of Liberation: Day 4

One of the world’s great myths is that of the “self-made man,” the person who, through nothing but hard work and determination, has become a success. The implication of this myth is that if one is not a success, it must be because he has not fixed hard enough on his goals or worked dilligently enough to achieve them. The Exodus story comes like a sledgehammer to shatter the “self-made man” myth: The Israelites were enslaved in Egypt for centuries. Did they remain in bondage because they didn’t work hard enough to get ahead or because they didn’t desire fiercely enough to be free? Of course not. They remained slaves because factors well beyond their control conspired to keep them that way, regardless of how much they yearned for freedom or how hard they worked. The only way for their poverty to end was to dismantle the system that kept them impoverished. The same is true today: While by-your-own-bootstraps gumption is important, and may work for some people sometimes, systems of oppression must be eradicated and replaced by systems of uplift, for people to have a chance to succeed.

 Click here to watch video of Rabbi Knopf's Invocation for the Virginia House of Delegates on February 23, 2018

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