Hello Everyone,
In our prayers on Pesach, the holiday is described as “the festival of freedom.” Many of the customs which we observe at the Seder meal are meant to emphasize that on Pesach our ancestors were freed from slavery in Egypt. The Rambam says that the mitzvah of the Seder Pesach requires that we internalize this idea of freedom (from the Sefaria site, Rambam chapter 7) :
In each and every generation, a person must present himself as if he, himself, has now left the slavery of Egypt, as [Deuteronomy 6:23] states: “He took us out from there.” Regarding this manner, God commanded in the Torah: “Remember that you were a slave [Deuteronomy 5:15]” – i.e., as if you, yourself, were a slave and went out to freedom and were redeemed.
The mitzvah of Pesach is to appreciate our being freed from slavery by Hashem.
But there is another dimension to this idea of freedom. Rabbi Shalom Noach Barzovski zt”l was the Rebbe of the Slonim community of Chasidim. He wrote drashot on the Torah and holidays titled Netivot Shalom. In his essays he provides guidance on how to find personal meaning in the holidays. With regard to the holiday of Pesach we of course need to thank Hashem for taking us out of Egypt to be His nation. But the Netivot Shalom says that the freedom of Pesach is not only national freedom. On Pesach each and every one of us is given an opportunity to be freed spiritually from everything that keeps us from being free to find Hashem. There is a freedom in the past but there is freedom to gained in the present.
This is the great insight that I wish to share with you in these two meetings.
