Passover. This Jewish holiday celebrates the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt. While the title “Passover” commemorates the act of God as he passed over Israelite households during the tenth and final plague that killed the Egyptians’ newborns and broke Pharaoh’s will, this season has other names: zeman heiruteinu – the “season of our liberation,” and hag ha-aviv – the “holiday of spring,” which links Passover to its most ancient roots, to a time when most festivals were hallmarks of the sacred passing of the seasons and the divine cooperation between man and the natural world.

There is a third name for Passover, hag ha-matzot – the holiday of the unleavened bread.

Imagine living in impoverished, enslaved conditions. Imagine that night, as the firstborn die and the mothers wail, and then the word comes in the latest hour that you must leave and leave right now. There is no time to provision yourself and your children with anything except the barest essentials, among those being unleavened bread.

What faith that moment demanded of the Israelites! They were not a rich people, an empowered people. They were not learned or even free. But they knew this: Liberation was worth any price God might ask them to pay, and God would not ask them to pay what they could not afford. When Rabbi Michael Strassfeld writes about Passover, he tells us that modern-day Jews must renew this choice, this leap of faith, every year. “The uniqueness of Passover … is that it teaches us that Jewish history is also a timeless present, that Passover is not simply a commemoration of an important event in our past – analogous to the Fourth of July or Bastille Day – but an event in which we participated and in which we continue to participate. We are meant to experience the slavery and the redemption that occurs each day of our lives.”

The slavery and redemption that occur each day of our lives. Such powerful words. Do they mean something to those of us who are not Jewish? What about to those of us who are not particularly religious, even those of us who eschew organized religion of any kind? What does it mean to have faith in this world, and to choose faith, and hope, again and again, especially when the world can seem so very hopeless?

The great Unitarian minister James Luther Adams preached that people are hard-wired for faith. We will have faith in, and we will worship, something. This cannot be avoided. “The question concerning faith is not, ‘Shall I be a person of faith?’ The proper question is, rather, ‘Which faith is mine?’ or, better, ‘Which faith should be mine?'” Do you have faith in love, friendship, God/dess, money, science, mystery, war or peace? Do you attend church on Sunday, but worship at the altar of your own prowess and individual needs the rest of the week? What excites you most? What do you display the most confidence in? That is where your faith lies, and it is powerful stuff.

In the sense that we choose this faith, either actively or passively, we experience our own liberation. In the sense that we must choose some faith, that we cannot live as faithless beings, we are not free. In that we may choose a faith that serves the sacred will toward compassion, justice and the preservation of the natural world, we are free and our freedom leads to the redemption of the world. In that we so often choose instead to worship hatred, greed, consumerism, pride, war, bigotry and fear, we are hopelessly enslaved. Every day, we make this choice.

Here in Maine, many of us belong to very small congregations, or to no congregation at all. Some of us worship in the same pew our mothers and grandmothers sat in; some of us are still struggling to find a spiritual home that fits. We do not feel empowered to produce change in the world based on faith. During this sacred season of Passover, let me suggest that faith is the only means to change in this world. So, notice where your faith lies, which bedrock beliefs you are acting on every day in your life and in your interactions with others and with the natural world. What call in the middle of the night would you answer, and where would it take you?

You cannot help but choose, so choose wisely, choose well.

Jennifer Emrich-Shanks is student minister at Castine Unitarian Church.. She may be reached at bdnreligion@bangordailynews.net. Voices is a weekly commentary by Maine columnists who explore issues affecting spirituality and religious life.