You shall hallow the fiftieth year. You shall proclaim liberty throughout the land for all its inhabitants. It shall be a Yovel for you: each of you shall return to your holding and each of you shall return to your family.
Vayikra 25:10
The institution of Shanat Yovel, the Jubilee Year, has not been practiced in Israel since the days of the First Temple.[1] And yet, there is much we can learn from the Torah’s stipulations surrounding this “year of release”. One of the key lessons is the true meaning of freedom. We are told that every fifty years, we are to forgive certain debts, return agricultural lands to their original owners, and most important of all, to release all indentured servants:
If your kin comes into straits and must sell himself to you, do not subject him to the treatment of a slave. Like a hired hand or resident [worker] shall he be with you. He shall serve you only until the Jubilee year. Then he, along with his children, shall be free of your authority; he shall go back to his family and return to his ancestral holding.
Most instructive is the reason given for this release from servitude: “For they are My servants, whom I freed from the land of Egypt; they may not give themselves over into servitude.”
This at first seems paradoxical. Is not servitude to God simply another form of servitude?
Two kinds of freedom
In a famous essay first published in 1958, British philosopher Sir Isaiah Berlin makes a distinction between two types of freedom, which he called “Negative liberty” and “Positive liberty”.[2]
While Berlin’s argument is somewhat complicated, the main foundation of his argument is as follows:
Negative liberty is the absence of obstacles, barriers, or constraints. An example would be freedom from coercion or from physical slavery.
Positive liberty, on the other hand, is the possibility of acting — or the fact of acting — in such a manner as to take control over our lives and realize our fundamental spiritual purposes. We experience a kind of transcendental and moral liberty which surpasses all forms of negative freedom.
Negative freedom is thus limited freedom. We believe that we are free when we do what we want to do, when in fact we have fallen victim to our desires and addictions.
Imagine that you are addicted to cigarettes. You get in your car to drive to the tobacconist before it closes. You may feel that you are exercising your free will, but in reality your urge to smoke is doing the navigation. Rather than driving, you are being driven. You may even be perfectly aware that in making this run to buy cigarettes, you’re missing out on time spent with your family. Your desire to smoke is not only threatening your health, but it is also preventing you from doing what you know you ought to be doing.[3]
This type of situation is what most people identify as freedom, when in fact it is the reverse. It is not liberty, but mental captivity. One is not in control, but is in fact being controlled. Isaiah Berlin calls this “freedom from”. It is negative freedom.
Positive freedom, on the other hand, is when we do, not what we want to do, but what we “ought” to do. We are not moved by our instincts, but by our moral obligations and transcendental values. Only that is truthful liberty. It is “freedom to”.
Herut and Hofshiut
It is interesting to note that the Jewish Tradition has two different words for negative freedom and positive freedom, “hofshiut” and “herut”. Hofshiut means to be free from physical bondage, such as when a slave becomes free from his master. While he is physically free, he is not necessarily morally free. His desires and addictions may still overpower him. The use of his cellphone, his need for his morning coffee, his addiction to cigarettes or fondness for shopping, sex, etc., may all hold him hostage if he allows himself to be overwhelmed by these urges.
Under such conditions, we may convince ourselves that we are free, when in fact we are imprisoned and enslaved. Only when we control these urges and are capable of restraining ourselves — when we live by higher spiritual values — can we claim to be truly free. We realize that “need” for a cup of coffee is really trivial compared to the great values that determine our life’s goals.
Most people spend all their lives in a kind of illusionary freedom, while in fact they are imprisoned. They believe that they have made a conscious decision while in fact they are being driven and cannot stop themselves. A person in this situation may be an “Adam Hofshi”, a person who is free from physical imprisonment. But he is not a “Ben Horin”, a person who is mentally and morally liberated.
The Moral Code
In a remarkable observation, the Jewish Tradition connects this distinction with the Ten Commandments. The Torah tells us that they were “engraved” on the Tablets which Moshe received on the top of Mount Sinai: “The Tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved (Hebrew: harut) on the tablets”.[4]
On this passage Pirke Avot draws the comparison between the word harut (engraved) with the word herut (liberty):
Read not harut, “engraved” but herut, “freedom,” for the only person who is truly free is one who occupies himself with Torah.[5]
According to Jewish Tradition, moral freedom is only achieved when a person lives by the teachings of the Torah.
This is similar to Goethe’s observation that in the acceptance of moral limitations, a human being proves himself to be true to himself. And only the Law can give him freedom.[6]
This insight turns the tables on those who claim to be “liberated” Jews because they have abandoned the ways of the Torah.
In this highly provocative observation Judaism claims the reverse. Those who do not live by the Torah are restricted, because they have not found true freedom, but only illusionary freedom. They may enjoy the absence of physical coercion (hofshi), but they do not experience spiritual freedom (herut) because they are not committed to moral freedom as expressed by the Torah.
Without some sense of the transcendent and the awareness of moral grandeur, we lose the script of the human story.
The famous philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) once wrote, “Among Jews ‘genius’ is found only in the holy man.”[7]
It is not good enough to be a “nice person” or “a good Jew at heart”. (Most of the time these are meaningless idioms.)
One needs to surpass civilization and become an exceptional human being bound by an outstanding moral religious code. Only then is one free in the fullest sense of the word.
A higher freedom
The authors of HaTikvah, the Israeli national anthem, wrote that in the State of Israel the People of Israel are an “Am Hofshi beArtzenu”, “a free nation in our land” in the sense that in establishing the State of Israel, the Jews have found their physical freedom after the many years of exile in foreign countries.
This is true enough. But for Jews to thrive, they must surpass mere physical freedom. It is not security or comfort that gives the Jewish people its power, but its exalted commitment to moral-religious values. The nature of the people of Israel is to live by a sacred mission. The existence of the people of Israel is dependent on its refusal to surrender to normalcy.
In adhering to our mission and its sacred foundations, we achieve moral liberty, not just physical freedom. Physical freedom can be lost when others take it away, but moral freedom can never be stolen, since it is found in the heart and deeds of those who commit to higher aspirations as found in the Jewish Tradition.
Jews are not asked to be “hofshim” but “bnei horin”. “For they are My servants, whom I freed from the land of Egypt; they may not give themselves over into servitude.”
Perhaps, the time has come to revise the text of HaTikvah, imbuing it with the real meaning of Jewish freedom: Herut.
Questions to Ponder
- Rabbi Cardozo argues that true freedom lies in moral and spiritual liberation, as opposed to merely being free from external constraints. How can this idea of “freedom to” accommodate the diversity of moral frameworks in a pluralistic society? Can a single religious or moral tradition define what “ought to be done” for all individuals?
- Isaiah Berlin’s definition of liberty draws a distinction between being driven by desires (negative freedom) and acting for higher values (positive freedom). Do you believe that all desires are inherently limiting, or can some desires, such as love or the pursuit of knowledge, also align with higher values and contribute to freedom?
- Rabbi Cardozo critiques Israel’s anthem, HaTikvah, for emphasizing physical freedom (hofshiut) rather than moral freedom (herut). In a modern, democratic society, to what degree is it the role of the state to define and promote moral freedom? Do you feel that such aspirations should remain personal rather than national or communal?
- By tying freedom to moral obligations and transcendental values, Rabbi Cardozo suggests that liberty involves submission to higher principles. Does this challenge or enhance the concept of individual autonomy? Can submission coexist with the idea of personal agency in defining one’s own freedom?
- The sages of the Talmud argue that moral freedom is achieved through living by Torah principles, which connect individuals to the transcendent. On the other hand, some would say that the pursuit of transcendence can become its own form of servitude, especially if it requires strict adherence to a specific set of laws? How would you balance the search for higher meaning with the potential for dogmatism?
Notes
[1] There is even some speculation about whether it was ever practiced nationwide.
[2] Isaiah Berlin, “Two Concepts of Liberty” Four Essays on Liberty, Oxford University Press, 1969.
[3] See: Carter, Ian “Positive and Negative Liberty” In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.) Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
[4] Shemot 32:16.
[5] Pirke Avot 6:2.
[6] Was wir bringen, 1802.
[7] Culture and Value, 1980.
