As the festival of our liberation and freedom approaches and we prepare to relive the exodus of our ancestors from Egypt, let's explore one statement from the Passover Seder text of the Haggadah book which we read at the Seder.
It says, “if G-d would not take us out of Egypt then we, our children and our grandchildren would still be slaves to pharaoh in Egypt.” This sounds a bit bizarre, can we actually imagine that we would have been slaves for the past 3333 years?
The Torah is a timeless G-dly manual for life, even the stories and history in the Torah have powerful life lessons.
The exodus from Egypt was not just something that happened years ago to our ancestors, rather it recurs each year and each day and every moment within each and every person.
The exodus was a simultaneous physical and spiritual event. While G-d was taking the Jews out of physical Egypt, he was also giving them the power to leave their personal limitations, giving them the ability to discover the power of the individual to be one's own master.
Thus freedom was created within humankind during this exodus, therefore it is a continuous event. And if it would not have happened then, we really would still be slaves to the pharaoh and the Egypt that's within each of us.
We can choose to live as slaves being subject to a pharaoh who dictates how we should live, societal pressures, keeping up with others, living up to unrealistic expectations and creating all sorts of self imposed limitations. These are all a form of slavery, perhaps even worse than a physical slavery.
This Passover let’s commit to being a free people, personally and collectively, by shutting out all the noise from the outside world and recommitting to our Jewish values. Family is always the first priority, education of children begins and ends in the home, parents are the greatest role models for our children, loving and caring for others is the greatest Mitzvah and on and on.
Yes, the very values that kept us alive since that exodus 3333 years ago.
We have always been together and we always will be!!
Wishing you and your family a healthy, safe, liberating, Kosher, and joyous Passover!
Sincerely, Rabbi Mendel & Elke Zaltzman
p.s. If you have any questions or if we can help you in any way please don't hesitate to reach out by sending an email.
