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Passover: Celebrating Freedom

An evening pause: For tonight, the second Passover Sedar, a short video explaining some of the philosophical underpinnings of Passover. Though decidedly from the reform (and liberal) side of the Jewish community, it still summarizes much of what Passover represents. On this holiday each person must imagine themselves a slave, so as to better appreciate what freedom represents.

The orthodox side of the Jewish community would add that this freedom comes from God, for which we must be ever thankful. The orthodox would also note that our freedom exists because of the arrival of the Torah, the Ten Commandments, and the rules for living a good life, handed down to at Mt. Sinai, after the exodus.

I say, be humble and try to do right, to the best of your ability, no matter what others demand (the Bible, even for someone who does not believe in God as the religions do, provides a good instruction manual). Do that, and you will certainly be free.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

2 comments

  • James Street

    Beautiful thoughts on slavery and freedom. Thank you.

    In the 1990s I got my first computer and AOL dialup to connect to the internet, which back then was mostly just chat boards. I was a real space nerd when I was young and Compuserve had a space chat board which for the first time gave me access to people actually in the space community. I remember some of their names, Rand Simberg (Transterrestrial Musings), Mark Whittington, Robert Oler, Mark Ruckman. I can’t remember if you were there Bob.

    Occasionally they would discuss politics, philosophy, religion, economics, life. It’s amazing how much they influenced my thinking and I still recall some of those wonderful discussions and am thankful.

  • James Street: I don’t think I was there, but maybe. I did participate in a few chat boards on the old usernets, now abandoned, but not many. At the time I was focused mostly in making the switch from the film business to freelance science journalism and writing my first space histories.

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