Passover provides important lesson about enslavement

OPINION:

Slavery is a despicable institution. Sadly, it is also an ancient and persistent institution. It has existed since time immemorial and is still in existence today in certain parts of the world. Throughout much of history, whenever one group has been able to exert domination over another, there have been efforts to exploit and often to enslave the dominated group.

Over the course of millenniums, slavery has reflected many forms of domination. Today, discussions about slavery are infused with issues of race, giving the impression that racial differences are the most significant aspects of enslavement. But racial differences have not defined slavery throughout much of history. In the ancient Middle East, various Semitic tribes — all of the same general racial makeup — regularly enslaved one another depending upon their relative strength in a cycle of never-ending wars. Victorious African tribes enslaved other defeated African tribes. For centuries, Russians enslaved other Russians, all of whom were fair-skinned.

The history of slavery cannot be changed. Indeed, there is nothing that any of us can do to alter history. We cannot retroactively eliminate slavery. All of the animosity being generated today about the terrible enslavement of Africans in the Americas cannot make that reprehensible history disappear no matter how many statues are torn down, no matter how many history books are discarded. History is forever.

There is, however, one component of history that can be altered: its consequences. It is within our power to determine how we view historical events and what we do about them. We can disregard history or use history as a weapon for vengeance and retribution. Alternatively, we can choose to learn from history and absorb its lessons for the future; thereby benefiting from its vagaries. The history of slavery is no exception.

The current climate in the United States suggests a powerful desire to weaponize the tragic history of Black enslavement. Public discourse is filled with notions of continuing White supremacy and the need to make Whites pay for the terrible errors of their distant ancestors. This is a perfectly understandable approach, one that is consistent with the manner of addressing grievances throughout history.

But it is not the only approach. There are others. And there is at least one that is far more desirable.

Some 3,500 years ago, an Egyptian pharaoh enslaved a group of people who had relocated to Egypt from their native lands to the north to escape famine. The available information indicates that these slaves were terribly mistreated over the course of hundreds of years and were subjected not only to forced labor but even to mass extermination through the killing of their young.

Miraculously, the slaves achieved their freedom, transformed themselves into the Jewish people and went on to establish their own nation. The memory of the enslavement has remained an integral part of that people’s history. What is of particular consequence, however, is what they have done with that memory.

Through the generations, the Jews have chosen to highlight and celebrate their liberation from slavery through religious commemorations. Passover Seders continue to be the religious ceremonies most celebrated by Jews, engendering a profound impact on Jewish identity.

Perhaps less well known, however, is the actual lesson that Jews have been instructed to derive from their slavery experience. That lesson does not include vengeance against Egypt, nor does it involve invective against the Egyptian people.

To the contrary, the Jews were commanded by their holy book, the Torah, to take a very different approach. They were directed to remember their enslavement, not for purposes of vengeance, but for the very reverse: to avoid ever engaging in similar behavior toward others to refrain from inflicting on others the suffering they had endured.

Verses 33 and 34 of Chapter 19 of Leviticus, the third book of the Torah, states this notion in stark terms: “And if a stranger stays with you in your land, you will not harm him. But the stranger that dwells with you will be to you as one born among you and you will love him as yourself: because you were strangers in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.” Similar statements appear five more times throughout the Torah.

Thus, not only did the Jews transform their terrible experience as slaves into an affirmation of the equal dignity of all people, they did so as a dictate from the Divinity, making of this concept a religious commandment. Based upon their collective suffering, the Jews were enjoined to make certain that they would never inflict such suffering on others. Effectively, the Jews turned a harsh lesson of history into an ethical imperative, infusing into the memory of an evil past, a commandment for good.

Since we cannot change history, it would seem that it may be the wiser approach to have history change us. This is what Jewish tradition chose to do with one of the most oppressive moments of the history of the Jewish people. It is a powerful model for others.

Perhaps, in these particularly divisive times, it would be wise for those who are suddenly so focused on the enslavement of Blacks in the United States to seek to emulate the Jewish example. Remind America of the horrors of slavery and teach its details, but use the memory of that terrible episode not to disparage our society but as a vehicle to improve it.

• Gerard Leval is a partner in the Washington office of a national law firm. His book, “Lobbying for Equality: Jacques Godard and the Struggle for Jewish Civil Rights During the French Revolution,” was published by HUC Press in 2022.