“Let My People Go” is only half the story

From a Jewish perspective, to speak only of the ideal of freedom – while ignoring its necessary partner of responsibility – is to pervert its true meaning.  

This is what Abraham Lincoln understood so well in his famous words, "Freedom is not the right to do what we want, but what we ought." 

And this is the real message of Passover: God granted us the gift of physical freedom, so that we might become truly free to be guided by our spiritual selves.