Who Is a Hero?

The festival of Passover is the next major Jewish holy day. It is a time for family gatherings and retelling the story of the liberation of the Israelites from Egyptian tyranny.  
The biblical narrative out of which the festival emerged contains a truth that can enrich people of all faiths and of none. After enduring the wrath of the 10 plagues that befell the Egyptians, Pharaoh is, at last, going to release the Israelites from hundreds of years of bondage.
But, as we read the story carefully, we soon realize that their chains have not disappeared; now Pharaoh wears them.
It is the Pharaoh who is enslaved, by his hunger for power and his greed for possessions. He cannot break his habit of manipulating people as though they were so many bricks.
Again and again, as each plague is visited upon his people, he agrees to let the slaves go, so that the plague may be lifted. But no sooner is the plague removed than he suffers a relapse. His heart goes hard, and he becomes more stubborn.
And even after the last bloody plague persuades him to release the slaves, he soon reverts to his old ways and pursues the Israelites to his watery grave. The chains of the Israelites were ultimately broken, but the pharaoh never freed himself.
The American poet Edwin Markham may have been thinking of Pharaoh when he wrote the quatrain he calls “Even Scales:”
    The robber is robbed by his riches,   
    The tyrant is dragged by his chain
    The schemer is snared by his cunning
    The slayer lies dead by the slain.
Most of us in this land of freedom are neither oppressors nor oppressed in the political sense. Nevertheless, too many of us are slaves. And the most distressing part of our enslavement is that the chains we wear we have forged for ourselves, as the pharaoh forged his own.
Some of us are the slaves of destructive habits and crippling fears. Some are imprisoned by unworthy ambitions and shabby pursuits. Some are held captive by the relentless drive for power or wealth. Others are chained by suspicions, superstitions, prejudices. 
We permit a host of inner tyrants to keep us in bondage. As the Jewish people on the festival of Passover are soon to read about the ancient Bible drama of liberation, we are powerfully reminded that God wants each of us to be freed. God summons us to be masters—not of others, but of ourselves.
“Who is a hero?” the Jewish sages asked. Their answer: “One who masters oneself.”
With all best wishes for this joyous holiday season.
ED. NOTE: Rabbi Isaacs is rabbi at Beth Judah Temple, Wildwood. He invites questions emailed to his website, www.rabbiron.com.