Enslavement to Ourselves (a Passover Special)
My favorite Jewish holiday, Pesach, also known as the Jewish Passover, is usually a day of celebration. It’s a day to reflect on my freedom, from slavery. Yet, this year, as I look around me, forgive me for not being in a celebratory mood. I just become sad, disappointed, and scared. Too many people in this world, even some of my friends and family, are full of ignorance, violence, and hatred. We have ceased to even attempt having productive dialogues, instead retreating to our protective cocoons of people sharing our like-minded thoughts. Worse, we ostracize, disparage, even physically and psychologically attack, those disagreeing with us. We allow fear and emotions to transform into bigotry and intolerance, and be ruled by extremists and power-hungry despots, over those with decency, courage, and common sense. We have freed ourselves from the chains of physical slave masters, only to remain enslaved, to ourselves!
We become slaves when we permit other peoples’ thoughts of who we are or who we should be, tyrannize us. When laziness, cowardice, and self-indulgence prevent us from doing what we know is right or fair, we become slaves. As long as envy, bitterness, or jealousy blind us to stand up against injustices, we remain shackled to our biases. Only when we open up our minds to learning, to different perspectives, and to our shared humanity, can we remove our binds and shackles. When instead of putting each other into boxes such as “good vs evil”, “us vs them”, or “friend vs enemy”, we expose ourselves to diverse opinions, communicate with each other, and collaborate to solve our differences, can we truly free ourselves.
We are enslaved if we allow our traumas to dictate how we respond in our actions. When our thoughts and decisions are guided by our insecurities, rage and fear, over logic, reasoning, and facts, we condemn ourselves to lash out on emotions, rather than taking the time to calm down and make productive decisions. Unfortunately, the consequences of doing so condemn us to an even more vicious cycle of hatred, violence, and misunderstandings. We risk getting punished with even more severe consequences, only creating deeper long-term issues and divisions, that in our triggered state we fail to even consider. We need to free ourselves by taking the time to heal. To talk to people, including therapists. To recover from our traumas. Only then, in a calmer and logical state can we be in a place to make decisions, and take actions.
We imprison ourselves when instead of collaborating with those with opposing perspectives to resolve our differences, we turn them into “enemies”. When we vilify and demonize those with differing viewpoints, we restrain our brains from freedom. If instead of dialogue and mutual respect, we respond with violence, aggression, and hatred, we alienate even potential sympathizers and allies. While it might feel easier to lash out and convince ourselves that we are always right, until we start treating all people as human beings, with respect, dignity, sympathy, and understanding, even when we disagree with them, we shall never be free.
If we give into intolerance and bigotry, we remain shackled to our biases and stereotypes. Like the inmate deprived of sunlight or nature, these bigotries prevent exposure to different cultures, and the awesomeness of interacting with diverse people. When we stereotype specific groups, when we dismiss those who disagree with us based on preconceived prejudices, when we see other human beings as less than us, we not only hurt our victims, but also ourselves. The consequences of our self-imposed enslavement are severe, as these impact our security ad our safety, risking the lives of our loved ones and ourselves. In contrast to the freedom we should be striving for, we instead choose to engage in both physical and psychological violence, perpetuate genocides, and start wars. We fail to learn lessons from history. How deeply does this hatred and intolerance continue to scar the world!
Actively silencing individuals daring to disagree with our viewpoints shackles our brains. As long as we partake in “cancel culture”, ostracizing those with divergent viewpoints, we do more than also “cancel” our ability to grow personally. We sow division and fear. Opposing viewpoints which, are a critical aspect of a functioning society, still very much exist, but underground. But because we no longer hear these, we accept only one view as the correct one, leaving our minds chained to just an “acceptable” perspective. Freedom of speech and expression, exposure to diverse media, and conversations with different people, encourage us to gather facts and think critically. Disrupting or cancelling speeches, shutting down protests, and arresting activists also make these voices disappear from fear and retaliations, rendering us no longer capable of accessing the information critical to making our own decisions and shaping our own viewpoints.
Why are we allowing extremists and autocratic politicians to be the masters our brains? While these massahs shape policies to quench their thirst for power, control, and personal benefit, we slumber along, ignoring, or worse, partaking, in the abuses, physical attacks, and psychological torture, of our neighbors, friends, even families. Free your minds from the influences and abuses of these unnatural so-called “leaders”! When we take off our blindfolds, we would never allow autocrats and extremists, those who yell the loudest and make the most noise, to scapegoat minorities, so to cover their own incompetencies. Stop allowing a few extremists to ostracize the very people who contribute to help make our communities function and flourish, and be courageous enough to first free your brain, and then stand up for what you know is right!
If our beliefs are shaped by ignorance and laziness, we remain enslaved. Our refusal to get educated about conflicts, policies, or laws retrains our brains from differentiating between reality and fantasy, fact from fiction. Our minds become chained with propaganda, with selective half-truths, and revisionist lies. Ignorant to reality and basic facts, we transform into zombies, surrendering our minds to be shaped by extremists and idealogues.
When we only interact with individuals who share our views, or only limit ourselves to following media sources with certain agendas, our minds become caged. By consuming just one part of a biased story, we restrain ourselves from hearing, understanding, or even appreciating, opposing viewpoints. When we are too lazy, incompetent, or cowardly to explore alternative viewpoints, we become brainwashed. Our eyes are blind to seeing nuances, complexities, and even realities.
Until we have difficult, uncomfortable conversations with individuals with differing perspectives, we remain slaves, incapable of considering, yet alone understanding, the valid fears, concerns, hopes, and dreams of people we disagree with. We remain trapped in our own brains, unable to appreciate nuances, nor understand that individuals even within the same ethnicity or political party have diverse experiences and beliefs. Depriving ourselves from learning about the perspectives of the “other side”, keeps us enslaved to propaganda and biases, restraining us from growing as human beings.
This Passover, I challenge you seek freedom, from your own enslavement! From the ignorance, laziness, and corroding hatred handcuffing us from uniting mankind. From the tyranny of autocrats and extremists, who shape our minds and our hearts, when we allow them to. It will be difficult, exhausting, and uncomfortable, but unshackling yourself from being a slave always is! If we truly want to be free, if we truly want to be better, well-rounded people, if we truly want to strive for peace, understanding, and decency, these must be done!
How do we do it? I invite you to join me in reading diverse media sources, educating yourselves about facts. Challenge your preconceived notions, by having conversations with people who you disagree with, with those with a differing life experience, with those who offer a perspective you have not even considered. Be open to learning, to understanding, to evolving. Put yourself in the shoes of someone who disagrees. Unshackle yourself from the binds of intolerance, bigotry, and prejudice.
If you do these, you will find that your fellow human beings, have dreams, desires, hopes, and fears, just like you. Most of us just want to live together in peace, so why do we allow autocrats and extremists to continue enslaving us? Share your journey to freedom, by helping free more of the enslaved, bound to their own prejudices, ignorances, and laziness, Why not celebrate our new freedom by collaborating together to compromise and resolve issues, so we can all live more peaceful, safer, and happy lives? We all bleed the same blood, so let’s bleed together playing sports, rather than because we’re hurting each other!
