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We find ourselves in a grey area in parsha Bo this week. As a people we yearn to be free, but in between leaving Mitzrayim (Egypt) and arriving at Sinai we have yet to receive the structure through which we can fully enjoy all that our freedom has to offer.

Our freedom as Canadians and as a people comes with responsibilities and limitations. One of those responsibilities is what we owe to those who, in many ways, don’t enjoy the freedom that we do. We can only achieve wholeness in our lives when we take action to help them.

There are still many people in this world, and in our own community, who have yet to experience “freedom.” They may not look like slaves in Mitzrayim, but they are slaves to circumstance. Whether it’s addiction, poverty, mental health issues or something similarly serious, they yearn for and deserve a freer existence.

Whether you are a donor or a volunteer or both, you play a vital role in helping to continue that exit from Mitzrayim for the thousands of people Federation and our partners help each year. Yesterday, the campaign Working Cabinet met to review the campaign’s progress thus far. These volunteers, under the leadership of Harvey Dales, general chair of the campaign, have been working incredibly hard to obtain the resources to maintain and expand the programs and services on which thousands of our community members rely. If you have already made your gift to the community through the campaign, we thank you. If you have not yet had the opportunity, I invite you to join us in our work today by making your gift online.

The parsha’s theme of freedom coupled with responsibility seemed to surround us this week. On Monday, my family and colleagues back home in the “old country” celebrated Martin Luther King jr. Day. It’s a day my family takes very seriously, in part because of the work my father and grandfather did in the Southern United States supporting the civil rights movement. It wasn’t just my family who was involved in this way though; many Jews were active in the South, helping desegregate lunch counters and ultimately supporting a community as they gained a greater measure of freedom. I like to think it was natural for Jews to play a role. Why? Because we know. We know what it means to live in bondage, and we know what it means to value freedom. And as Jews we embrace the responsibility to help raise up those who are less free.

Thankfully, we are not alone in accepting and valuing this responsibility. This past Sunday was the 10th annual Raoul Wallenberg Day in Vancouver, and to mark the occasion the Wallenberg-Sugihara Civil Courage Society presented their inaugural award to The Honourable Ujjal Dosanjh. He was honoured for being a consistent voice for social justice and a critic of sectarian violence. You can read his remarks here. Our Federation is proud to have supported this event, along with other organizations from the Jewish, Indo-Canadian and Swedish communities that share our values.

Finally, as we approach Shabbat there is one important event this week that I haven’t yet touched on. That, of course, is the attack that injured 13 in Tel Aviv. Reading the stories of some of the victims, I was particularly struck by one – the story of a 13-year-old boy who was on his way to class at his new school. So often it is the story of an individual that conveys the magnitude of the experience of many. Please join me in wishing all those who were injured Refuah Shlemah and a peaceful Shabbat.

Shabbat Shalom,

Ezra S. Shanken
CEO, Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver