This kind of law is like an engraving on stone. It is not something external to us, but something that shapes our character and our behavior. It is not a constraint on freedom, but a condition of freedom. The only person who is truly free is one who is occupied with Torah study, because Torah is not an external imposition but an internal engraving on the soul.
So the Sages coined a new word for freedom, cherut, based on the word for engraving, charut. They did so because they understood that true freedom does not come from the absence of constraints, but from the presence of a law that we have made our own. It is the freedom that comes from living in a society where people do not need to be coerced because they have willingly embraced the moral norms that guide their lives.
Thus, the birth of a new idea â the idea of cherut as the highest form of freedom â is like the birth of a galaxy, a moment of revelation that illuminates the darkness of the human condition. It is a reminder that true freedom is not the freedom to do as we please, but the freedom to become what we ought to be.
As we celebrate Pesach, the Festival of Freedom, let us remember that the truest freedom comes not from breaking the chains of external constraint, but from embracing the inner discipline that shapes our souls and guides our lives. Let us strive to be like the Tablets of the Law, engraved with the word of G-d, and thereby achieve the highest form of freedom â the freedom to be truly ourselves.
They no longer desire to do what the law forbids because they now know it is wrong and they wrestle with their own temptations and desires. Such a law needs no police because it is based not on external force but on internal transformation through the process of education. The law is like writing engraved in stone.
Imagine such a society. You can walk in the streets without fear. You don’t need high walls and alarms to keep your home safe. You can leave your car unlocked and still expect to find it there when you return. People keep the law because they care about the common good. That is a free society.
Now imagine the other kind of society, which needs a heavy police presence, constant surveillance, neighborhood watch schemes, security devices and personnel, and still people are afraid to walk alone at night. People think they are free because they have been taught that all morality is relative, and you can do what you like so long as you do not harm others. No one who has seen such a society can seriously believe it is free. Individuals may be free, but society as a whole has to be on constant guard because it is at constant risk. It is a society with little trust and much fear.
Hence the brilliant new concept that emerged in rabbinic Judaism: cherut, the freedom that comes to a society – of which Jews were called on to be pioneers – where people not only know the law but study it constantly until it is engraved on their hearts as the commandments were once engraved on stone. That is what the Sages meant when they said, “Read not charut, engraved, but cherut, freedom, for the only person who is truly free is one who is occupied with Torah study.” In such a society you keep the law because you want to, because having studied the law you understand why it is there. In such a society there is no conflict between law and freedom.
Where did the Sages get this idea from? I believe it came from their deep understanding of what Jeremiah meant when he spoke of the renewed covenant that would come into being once Jews returned after the Babylonian exile. The renewed covenant, he said, “will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt … This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time – declares the L-rd – I will put My law in their minds and write it on their hearts …” (Jer. 31:31-33).
Many centuries later Josephus recorded that this had actually happened.
“Should anyone of our nation be asked about our laws, he will repeat them as readily as his own name. The result of our thorough education in our laws from the very dawn of intelligence is that they are, as it were, engraved on our souls.”
To this day, many still do not fully understand this revolutionary idea. People still think that a free society can be brought about simply by democratic elections and political structures. But democracy, as Alexis de Tocqueville said long ago, may simply turn out to be “the tyranny of the majority.”
Freedom is born in the school and the house of study. That is the freedom still pioneered by the people who, more than any other, have devoted their time to studying, understanding and internalizing the law. What is the Jewish people? A nation of constitutional lawyers. Why? Because only when the law is engraved on our souls can we achieve collective freedom without sacrificing individual freedom. That is cherut – Judaism’s great contribution to the idea and practice of liberty.
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, a”h, was the chief rabbi of Great Britain and the author and editor of 40 books on Jewish thought. He passed away in 2020.