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Passover liberation and US liberty both summon us to remember and renew

JL;DR SUMMARY Michael S. Roth explores the parallel themes of memory and liberty in Passover and American Independence. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

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Tags

DemocracyPassoverEducationStudent ActivismMemoryFreedomLiberationDeclaration Of IndependenceHistorical RecollectionPolitical Heritage

Places mentioned

Washington, DC, Washington DC, United States
"An engraving of the US Declaration of Independence in the Rotunda of the US Capitol in Washington, DC, US, on Monday, June 23, 2025."
Middletown, Connecticut, United States
"As it so happens, during Pesach this year I am also working at Wesleyan University on a national program to encourage college students to protect our democracy by participating in it."
Chicago, Illinois, United States
"Allen describes teaching the Declaration of Independence to a group of working adults in a night class in Chicago and how by doing so she came to appreciate its famous words more profoundly than ever."
Egypt
"And this insistence is not restricted to what happened to other people in the distant past. The Torahs word for remembering here is zakhor, which means something closer to reliving than to what we usually think of historical recollection. We are slaves in Egypt, just as we are at the foot of Mount Sinai to receive the Commandments."

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Retrieved 2026-04-06 05:30:54 UTC
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