
Happy Passover. The themes of liberation and freedom that greet us every year at our “seder” can also be seen in very personal terms. After all, here is a festval that confronts us in very personal terms, asking us to see the Exodus in symbolic ways. Passover IS personal. It calls us each year to examine our fears and calls us to have the courage, as the Israelites did, to move forward in life. The “Mitzraim” of our own souls often keeps us enslaved. Thus, Passover is about our ability to seek our own true passions and move to our own “promised land”.
In looking through a collection of “haggadot”, I came across a recent one called “The Holistic Haggadah” (published by Michael Hagan in 2002. Lamda Pub. Brooklyn, NY) There are some wonderful meditations and readings, very mystsical in a way, that accompany each “seder” rubric. The commentary speaks a lot to these themes of personal liberation and freedom, asking as to what we are “hungry” for (the “bread” of affiction section) and looking at what it means to be free. “Freedom”, it says, “is to be totally free to choose to live fully the life that God has destined for us. And what prevents this? The fear that arises from the mind (ego), that without holding on to something we are a nothing. So, we become enslaved by the illusion that by holding on to something in the temporal plane of existence we will find an anchor in the sea of chaos and this anchor creates the illusion of security and the ‘security’ creates the illsuion of freedom”. (p.49).
So, here is a thought. When we ask “why is this night different from all others?”, think about asking your own soul that question not because you are sitting at ‘seder” and this is what you are supposed to do. Rather, ask yourself what can make this night different from all others for me? Are you prepared to move forward in your life, to free yourself from the narrow places that hold you back from your true self and passion? “The Exodus from Mitzraim is about the willingness to let go and be different”.(p.50) If you leave that “seder” the same as when you came, perhaps it is as if your soul is still bound up in the Miztraim that keeps you enslaved. That open door for Elijah may just be an invitation for your soul to begin its own Exodus to your own truth.
Have a sweet and healthy Passover.
Shalom,
Rabbi Richard F Address, D.Min
Sacred adging and Passover! I am still sick and alone in a Christian nursing home, by now , everyone knows that I am Jewish. I have 3 boxes of Matzo for the week.I have 2 Yehuda matzos and I large round Orthodox box of matzo ( I have been G-mail with Chabad 2 hour’s away.They have been very kind ,offer to visi, and bring matzo! My Temple didn’t offer to even visit, I am still Reform, Chabad knows this (you folks know of my loneliness! I hope what I am doing is OK,lonely senior) Marsha Selwyn
Marsha,
I am so sad you are sick and alone. I can only write to wish you a sweet Passover and to let you know that there are others alone who wish you well.