A Message from the Rebbe

When Passover approaches, we recall again that great event at the dawn of our history. Our people were liberated from Egyptian bondage in order to receive the Torah as free men and women.

Memory and imagination give us the ability to associate with an event of the past, and to relive the emotions that were felt at the time of the event. Only physically are we bound by time and space.

In our minds we can travel without limits, and the more spiritual we become, the closer we can approach the past, and the more intensely we can experience its message and inspiration.

Remembering is a spiritual achievement. Commenting on the verse, “And these days shall be remembered and done” (Esther 9, 28), our Sages teach that as soon as those days are remembered, they are spiritually reenacted. The Divine benevolence that brought miracles in the past is reawakened by our act of recollection.

Passover is the “Festival of our Liberation.” It celebrates an historic event: the Exodus of the Jewish people from Egypt. However, our Sages teach us that in every generation, and on each and every day, we must see ourselves as though we had just been liberated from Egypt.

The implication is that freedom was not achieved once and for all. It requires constant guarding. Each day, and every environment, carries its own equivalent of Egypt—a power to undermine the freedom of a Jew.

Perhaps the biggest threat comes from within. The conviction that certain achievements are beyond us—the strong, comfortable belief that one was not born to reach the heights of spiritual life. To believe this is to set bars around oneself, to fall captive to an illusion.

Passover is thus an ongoing process of self-liberation. The festival and its practices are symbols of a struggle that is constantly renewed within a Jew, to create the freedom in which to live out his or her spiritual potential.

This is one of the reasons why we are enjoined to remember our liberation from Egypt in every generation and on every day. We must personally “go out from Egypt” every day, to escape the limits, temptations and obstructions that our physical existence places in the way of our spiritual life.

The manifestation of our liberation from Egypt is the liberation of our Divine soul from the constraints of its physical environment. And when it is achieved—with the help of G-d Who freed us from Egypt, and through a life of Torah and mitzvot—a great spiritual anguish is ended. The inner conflict between what is physical and what is Divine in a Jew’s nature is transcended. Then we can enjoy real freedom, the sense of serenity and harmony, which is the prelude to freedom and peace in the world at large.

(Adapted from a letter by the Rebbe, 11th of Nissan, 5713.)