Our Sages teach that when we remove chametz from our homes before Pesach we are also bidden to remove the “chametz” from our hearts – unholy character traits such as arrogance, lust, jealousy, selfishness, and the like.
In a similar manner, Rabbi Kook teaches that we are called upon to remove the “chametz” of foreign cultures and foreign idolatries from our hearts. In several of his writings on Pesach, Rabbi Kook teaches that when a Jew identifies with being a citizen of a foreign country, with its language, its culture, its aspirations and ideals (or lack of them), he is subjugating his pure, inner Israelite spirit to a form of foreign worship and slavery – like the cultural and spiritual bondage the Jewish People suffered in ancient Egypt when we sunk down so low in the depravities of Egyptian culture that Hashem had to rush to extract us in haste lest we perish completely.
This servitude to the bondage of a foreign culture and worship was in addition to the physical slavery we endured. Thus on Pesach, when we celebrate our Nation’s freedom from the bondage of Egypt, we are to rediscover and to recreate our true freedom within ourselves, in our own lives today, both on an individual and national level. The cleaning we do before Pesach, the removal of chametz from our homes, and the exalted experience of the Pesach Seder all help to free ourselves from impure attachments to alien cultures and creeds.
In simple words, our Sages our informing us that when a French Jew gets teary-eyed when he hears the French National Anthem, “Allons enfants de la patrie…” or when an American Jew feels goosebumps when he sings “Oh say can you see by the dawn’s early light…” at the start of a baseball game, that Jew has subjugated himself to a foreign country and culture, and everything which goes with it. Sometimes this phenomena is referred to as dual loyalty.
Its affect is far more pernicious than people think. Yes, a Jew may keep whatever Torah commandments he can in his exile condition in a foreign land, but for him the Torah has been reduced to the practice of religious precepts and Jewish rituals instead of its being the core of his national Israelite essence. He sees his nationality not as a member of the Children of Israel, but as a child of America instead.
Thus his concept of Hashem’s having chosen us from all other NATIONS becomes confused. He sees himself as an America Jew (or a Frenchman, Englishman, German, or Australian) and not as an Israeli. Thus he believes in his heart that when Israel goes to war, it is the Israelis who must fight. Not he. He’s an American. His yearnings are no longer the age-old longings of the Jewish People for salvation from Exile and for a sovereign Jewish country of our own in the Holy Land.
He has found a new Promised Land and wants to enjoy the American pastime of baseball, and pursue a college career, and go on to achieve business success or professional achievement and wealth – the aspirations of the society and culture where he lives – aspirations that are not necessarily the cherished values of Torah which, in addition to refining character traits, deals with the establishment of the Jewish Nation in the Land of Israel.
He is, in effect, in bondage to the very materialistic values he so ardently pursues. The self-sacrifice inherent in building the Israelite Nation anew in the Land of his Forefathers is not for him. He has cashed in his deep, inborn Israelite identity for another, like a Hebrew slave who says, “I love my master and don’t want to go free” (Shemot 21:5).
It is true that polluted Western values have infiltrated life in Israel as well, and on Pesach we too in the Holy Land must strive diligently to free ourselves from being slaves to their influences and pulls. But at least here in the Jewish Homeland, when there is a war, Jews leave their businesses and campuses and personal pursuits and bind themselves to the higher, far-more exalted connection to the Israelite Nation as a whole, willing to sacrifice their lives for fellow Jews – and that is the mark of true Jewish freedom.
Tzvi Fishman- was awarded the Israel Ministry of Education Prize for Jewish Culture and Creativity. Before making Aliyah to Israel in 1984, he was a successful Hollywood screenwriter. He has co-authored 4 books with Rabbi David Samson, based on the teachings of Rabbis A. Y. Kook and T. Y. Kook.