Two-Line Torah: Beshalach 5776–From Slavery to Freedom

This Torah portion, Beshalach, culminates in the Exodus from Egypt.

Today, no Jewish ceremony is more widely celebrated than the Passover Seder, regardless of a Jew’s background. In fact, it is during the Seder that we read that “we [present tense] were slaves.”

What does this mean for a Jewish student or professional on campus? It means that we must liberate ourselves from our own self-imposed limitations that do not give us full access to the blessings and opportunities we have.  Slavery is not always physical, but sometimes just a mindset that that causes us to fail before we even give something or someone a chance.

This is one of the most important lessons from the splitting of the sea! It teaches us that we must go forward strongly no matter how frightening things may look on either side of us. Go straight with strength!

Alex Amchislavskiy is the Hillel Campus Director at Colorado State University.