T orah P ortion
The True Value of Education
BY RABBI DANIEL LEVITT
Parshat Bo
THIS WEEK’S TORAH
portion, Bo, marks the begin-
ning of the Jewish people’s
freedom from slavery in
Egypt. It begins with the last
three of the 10 plagues, and
then continues with Pharaoh
allowing the people to go free
and of their preparations to
leave. We learn a little bit about
the Jewish concept of freedom
through this narrative.

On the eve of the Jewish
people’s departure from Egypt,
Moses speaks to the people
about educating their children
on three different occasions.

This is important because it
is teaching us that the impor-
tance of freedom is about
much more than just achieving
freedom from bondage for the
sake of freedom alone.

If all the Torah wanted
to teach was that a person
shouldn’t have be shackled,
Moses could have spoken
about how great it will be to
be free and how amazing God
is for freeing the Jews alone.

Instead, he chooses to reveal
the lessons about freedom
through the perspective of
what are the opportunities
Ethical Continued from Page 6
said Magfirah Dahlan-Taylor,
an instructor of philosophy
and world religions at Craven
Community College.

Rev. Christopher Carter, assis-
tant professor, assistant chair and
department diversity officer of
theology and religious studies at
University of San Diego, said the
hazardous conditions facing meat
processing workers at Tyson food
plants showed how even when
food corporations take pride in
their essential status during the
pandemic, the essential labor
and humanity of their employees
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available when a person is free.

Freedom needs to become a
positive value celebrating and
experiencing what is gained
through freedom.

According to
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, one of the core
institutions needed for freedom
to be experienced and upheld is
education. Sacks wrote, “You
must tell your children (and
the children of your commu-
nity) about slavery and the long
journey to liberation. They
must annually taste the bread
of affliction and bitter herbs of
slave labor. They must know
what oppression feels like if
they are to fight against it. So
Jews became the people whose
passion was education, whose
citadels were schools, and
whose heroes were teachers.”
True freedom is experi-
enced in a community’s ability
to educate, to expand minds
and perspectives, to tolerate
opposing ideas rooted in truth,
and to choose to be inspired to
act according to truths learned
when a community can inspire
action through education.

Our society has been
plagued by false information
inspiring countless people to
act in hurtful and destructive
ways. This is the difference
between propaganda and
education. Freedom and
propaganda are mutually
exclusive because propaganda
is the opposite of education;
it is based on falsehoods and
seeks to control.

Propaganda enslaves people
to a false understanding of
reality and seeks to control
people’s behavior, while educa-
tion enlightens people with the
ability to think critically, think
for themselves, and hopefully
to be inspired to help rather
than be controlled to do harm.

What should our response
be to this sad state of events,
how can we all learn from
recent events? One approach
could be to ask ourselves in
what way are we deficient in
our desire to truly learn about
issues in depth in a way that not
only supports my worldview,
but challenges me to think
deeper, in a more nuanced
way, to understand important
issues from multiple (factual)
perspectives in a way that
allows us to engage in dialogue
with people we disagree with.

Too often, we seek comfort
in the people and opinions who
agree with us and conform
to our sense of what’s right,
and we demonize the “other”
when it challenges this sense
of security. The digital world’s
consumption of news media
has exacerbated this tendency
of human nature and, as a
result, the world feels more
polarized than it has in recent
memory. Most of us lament
this reality with no idea how to
overcome this wave of educa-
tional enslavement.

According to Rabbi Sacks,
the answer to truly being free
is to celebrate and strengthen
the value of true education,
the value of having a passion
for truth; whether or not it
conforms to our previously
held notions, and allows us
to have a conversation with
people we disagree with based
on a shared set of facts.

There is a line from Pirkei
Avoth 6:2 which says, “There
is no one so free as one who
occupies himself with the
study of Torah.” The intellec-
tual heritage of Torah is one
where we value truth above all
other factors. There needs to
be a culture around the way
in which we digest news and
information where people with
differing opinions are able to
engage in respectful dialogue
because everyone can at least
agree on a shared set of facts,
and everyone can respect
another perspective as having
value, and everyone can feel
confident that the other has
not been radicalized by propa-
ganda. That is how truth and
freedom are maintained.

When we seek to attack or
silence the valid factual ideas
we don’t like and we disagree
with, we are not acting within
the spirit of Judaism, and
we are risking our freedom.

Because true freedom is about
the ability to rise above our
passions, to control ourselves,
and in the words of Rabbi
Sacks, “To control oneself
without having to be controlled
by others.”
May we all be blessed to
seek to educate ourselves, to
value truth above all else, and
may the power of truth mend
our fractured world. Shabbat
Shalom! l
is often rendered invisible by
systemic racism.

So, what is to be done?
Dan McKanan, Ralph Waldo
Emerson Unitarian Universalist
senior lecturer at Harvard
Divinity School, argued that
while food is traditionally
treated as an individual choice,
meaningful change could only
be achieved if it was considered
a communal act with ramifi-
cations for others. His fellow
panelists agreed, citing tradi-
tions from their own faith that
illustrated this point.

Dahlan-Taylor said that the
Islamic festival of Eid al-Adha,
which is often celebrated with
an entire community partici-
pating in and sharing a sacrifice,
offers an opportunity for people
to reflect on their obligations to
each other as humans and to
non-human animals.

Carter said the pandemic
made him reflect more critically
about how his eating habits
aligned with his Christian
ethics. He acknowledged that
changing eating habits, which
often follow centuries-old tradi-
tions, could be challenging.

He advised leaders to start
conversations by inviting people to
tell stories about why they choose
to eat the way they do. Once people
started thinking critically about
their habits, it would become
easier to see how food choices can
be changed to align more closely
with religious values.

Crane said the vignette from
the Talmud illustrated the inter-
connectedness of food systems in
the ancient world. Even though
Jews did not eat pigs, they were
still impacted by others’ choices
to do so and had to grapple with
uncomfortable conversations
that arose as a result.

“Who am I, to talk about
your dietary patterns? Yet, this
is precisely one of the points of
these sources and our conver-
sation today: your eating
practices inexorably impact
me, and everyone else, and vice
versa,” he said.

He added that the laws of
Kashrut primed Jews to think
about righteous eating and
communal values. Jewish and
non-Jewish communities alike,
he noted, could identify their
core values and choose to eat in
ways that uphold them.

The event was organized by
CreatureKind, Jewish Initiative
For Animals, Shamayim
Jewish Animal Advocacy and
Unitarian Universalist Animal
Ministry. l
JEWISH EXPONENT
Rabbi Daniel Levitt is the executive
director of Hillel at Temple
University: the Rosen Center.

The Board of Rabbis is proud to
provide diverse perspectives on
Torah commentary for the Jewish
Exponent. The opinions expressed
in this column are the author’s own
and do not reflect the view of the
Board of Rabbis
spanzer@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0729
JANUARY 21, 2021
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