Why’s this Passover different from other Passovers |
Passover: A Timeless Story of Freedom
This past week, the Jewish people celebrated Passover, a holiday that is also called “the time of our freedom.” During the seder, we Jews recounted the story of the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt and how God brought us out of Egypt with a strong hand and mighty arm. Our rabbinic sages structured the seder to mirror the ancient Israelites’ experience: a lowly beginning with discussion of our humble roots that gives way to an ending filled with praise and valor. The matzah starts as the bread of affliction and ends as a symbol of freedom.
I think often about what it means to be free. Freedom is more than not being imprisoned; it is the ability to make moral choices, to live according to conscience, to pursue one’s faith or none at all without fear of retribution. There is no freedom in being chained to rules that you did not choose. There is no freedom in being oppressed by a regime that seeks to control every aspect of life. There is no freedom in being prohibited from expressing one’s opinions publicly.
I have always felt a strong affinity for Passover. Having been born in the Islamic Republic of Iran, I made my own exodus for freedom when I escaped to the United States almost ten years ago. The sages tell us to imagine that we ourselves are actually leaving Egypt when we tell the story at our seders. But I, along with my Iranian compatriots, don’t have to imagine that. It is real for us. We know what it’s like to live a life restricted, to be chained against one’s will. We don’t need to eat bitter herbs to know the bitterness the ancient Israelites faced.
This year Passover carries even a deeper meaning for me. Ever since Israel’s 12-Day War over the summer, during which they annihilated top Islamic regime officials with extreme precision, I have begun to see a future in which not only I can be free, but my homeland Iran can be as well. For years I just saw Passover as a symbol for my own personal freedom. But this year I see it as symbolizing a collective freedom for the Iranian people, much like the Biblical Passover was for the ancient Israelites.
A Personal Exodus from Islamism
Allow me to take a historical step back and explain what I mean when I say we were not free in Iran. As the readers may know, since when the 1979 Islamic Revolution toppled the Shah, Iran has been ruled by a doomsday accelerationist death cult, also known as the Islamic Republic of Iran. Ever since, the regime has ruled the population, regardless of religion, under Islamic law. This means everyone in the country—religious minorities and tourists—must abide by the Sharia. Women are forced to wear the Hijab. Men are not allowed to wear shorts or grow their hair long. And anyone who is caught drinking alcoholic beverages is publicly flogged for their “crime.”
This year, I feel the deep, aching gratitude for the freedom that I now hold—liberty that was once denied to me simply for existing as a person who sought truth, dignity, and self-determination. Growing up under the Islamic regime that demanded absolute conformity, questions were dangerous. Protesting was an invitation for persecution, imprisonment, or worse. My family is devout with my father and uncles aligned with elements of the regime, perhaps for ideological reasons or because they wanted money and power in a patriarchal society that might seemingly discourage, but in reality reward that kind of behavior. Either way, maintaining strict adherence to Islam was paramount in our home. And any questioning of the faith or the regime were strictly forbidden. I learned early that silence was survival. But silence, I realized, is a prison in itself. It erodes the soul, even as it preserves the body.
Questioning is the very essence of being Jewish. The patriarch Jacob, father of twelve sons who would go on to become the twelve tribes, was renamed “Israel” by God after wrestling with an angel. In Hebrew, the name Israel means “he who wrestled with God.” His descendants, the ancient Israelites, and now the Jews, carry this quality in blood and spirit. Grappling with the religious text is a virtue. Questions are also an integral part of the Passover Seder. In fact, some say the seder was specifically designed in order to elicit questions from children.
By the time I reached my teenage years, the Islamic chokehold around my neck was suffocating. I had become disillusioned with the religion after hearing, witnessing, and experiencing so much violent and hatefilled rhetoric. The restrictions imposed upon me (no music, no dogs, no Western movies, no talking to girls) colored my world grey. I yearned for a better—freer—way of life.
A summer camp acquaintance, an Armenian Christian, showed me the Bible when I was thirteen years old. It was my first time reading the Scripture. The Old Testament, though more ancient, made more sense to me than the religious text with which I had grown up. But I couldn’t simply leave Islam to pursue Judaism. Leaving Islam, apostasy, is one of the gravest crimes a Muslim can commit. In the Islamic Republic of Iran, its punishment is execution. So in secret, away from my father’s pious eyes, I stopped being Muslim and learned what I could about the people of Israel.
But eventually, my secret got out. Once my family learned I was an apostate, they were going to have me arrested. And so in the middle of one night, just like the ancient Israelites over three thousand years before me, I made my hurried escape. I stuffed one suitcase, grabbed $200, and jumped on a bus to Armenia. From there, I went to Georgia to obtain a U.S. visa, and two months later, landed in New York City.
The Iranian People’s Exodus from Islamism
That was nearly ten years ago. America, with its promise of religious freedom, has given me the right to freely devote my life to being a Jewish American. I am finally free to lead the life my heart always yearned for. Yet part of me still mourns my forsaken homeland, desecrated and abused by Islamists. Even though I have built my own family with two beautiful children — speaking to them in Persian, sharing with them photos of my youth, telling them stories of my past — part of me craves to bring them to Iran so they could breathe the air I did, visit the historical monuments, witness the culture I raise them with, and touch the memories I made.
An estimated 4 million Iranians have already had their own personal exodus from Iran, escaping the suffocating grasp of Islamism. And yet, for as long as the regime remains, I will never be truly free. But now there is hope that the Iranian people can have a collective exodus from Islamism. I marvel at the mighty U.S. military, outstretched across the world.
For the first time in almost half a century, there is hope. The military campaign with precision strikes against the regime’s leaders, retaliatory infrastructure, and oppression apparatus, has ignited a spark of possibility. The Iranian people, like the ancient Israelites, now have a chance at finally breaking free from the chains of tyranny: A collective exodus from Islamism.
For the past month my three-year-old daughter has been learning about Passover at school. At home, I read her our Persian haggadah. It’s surreal to me to tell her the exodus story. Not only is this act (Exodus 13:8) a foundational commandment, one I am so excited to fulfill, but it also bears that special significance this year.
Because for the first time, I am also telling my daughter about Iran: where I grew up, her two uncles and two cousins she has never met. A Free Iran, which now feels like a real possibility, would open up a whole world for me and my family. For other Persian Jews. For Jews worldwide. And of course, for all Iranians.