Pakistan and You Imagine awakening one day to find that you were a prisoner in your own home and your normal life had been turned upside down. All those elements which you took for granted, such as being able to exit your home, read a newspaper, gather freely and share ideas with your friends have been abruptly ripped away from you. How would you feel if freedoms which you had taken for granted suddenly were no longer your own and you were entirely vulnerable and in effect enslaved? This is happening in Pakistan. We are witnessing the overthrow of civil rights by a tyrant. Just a few days ago all of us were privy to marches and rallies peopled by attorneys. I watched in open-mouthed wonder as crowds of people wearing suits and ties carried their briefcases against the suspension of the Pakistani constitution. The phrase, “Taxation without representation” echoed in my head. Our own origins as a democracy are tied to the rule of law. When public order and respect for every individual was utterly disregarded by the Crown, our early American forebears arose and initiated a new political system; democracy. In Pakistan, rights that you and I presume to automatically enjoy are dramatically being swallowed up by the voracious appetite of a dictator. Every morning I recite, “Blessed are You, Lord our God, Sovereign of the universe for You have made me free.” We Jews have been reciting this blessing for 2,000 years. There are a number of ways to understand this blessing. One perspective might be that God is truly responsible for the freedoms which we enjoy. However, the problem with that interpretation is that it does not explain how God would allow other nations or other societies to not be free. So perhaps this blessing reflects a more subtle and gradual understanding of how freedom arises. God is the source whereby individuals and communities are inspired to champion social justice for others. Or, the blessing might address the privacy of individual attitudes. People under house arrest who see their captivity as the first steps for freedom for their society might be free in their minds and hearts for they see in their mind’s eye a future of freedom for their nation. You and I arise every morning with a fairly strong sense that we are able to say, “Bless You, God, for making me free.” The point of that blessing is to sensitize us to the value of our freedoms. When Jewish people first wrote these words two millennia ago, many Jews were in captivity. In fact the original formulation of the blessing was, “Blessed are You, God, who has not made me a slave” which may have testified to the fact that many Jews were enslaved by other peoples. Only within the past 50 years did the Conservative Movement change the term “not made me a slave” to “made me a free person” in its goal of integrating ancient tradition with modern life. Now we see with our own eyes another society that is struggling to find freedom. Only God knows Pakistan’s future course. May you and I be renewed in our appreciation of God’s blessings that we are living in a free society. By the way, as I write this article it is November 9th which is the anniversary of Kristallnacht 59 years ago. On this day in 1938 German police forces, firefighters and other citizens devoted to maintaining lawful order stood by and allowed riots to sweep across the face of Germany resulting in the destruction of 7,000 Jewish businesses, thousands of Jewish people being beaten, 100 Jews being killed and 30,000 Jewish men being arrested and placed in Buchenwald, Dachau, Sachsenhausen. It was called Kristallnacht, which means “night of the broken glass” because of all the glass that littered the streets of German towns and cities. It was later estimated that the amount of plate glass destroyed equaled half the annual production of the plate glass industry of Belgium from which it had been imported (The War Against The Jews 1932-1945, Lucy Dawidowicz page 137). I ask you to say this Bracha every day and to appreciate this sacred gift of our freedom which has been handed down to us and preserved for us by our ancestors and our neighbors.