As we begin our Passover preparations, we turn our thoughts once again to understanding more fully the meaning not only of the holiday itself, but the great lessons that Pesach teaches us in the Twenty-first Century CE. So I share a thought provoking article written by my son and collaborator, Dovid. I hope it will inspire you to explore again the challenge of freedom.
The Haggadah reminds us, "With a small number of people..." Just seventy individuals went down to Egypt but when we went to conquer Eretz Yisrael, we were "as numerous as the stars in the heavens."
It is interesting to note that with seventy we slid to our lowest depths. But with seventy-one, we changed the course of Jewish living.
Once we left Egypt and started to deal with the real problems any community faces, it became clear that even our greatest leader had to raise the bar. Moshe Rabeinu added seventy leaders to his one to create a group who both guides and speaks for the entire Jewish people.
From these seventy-one we learned how to live Hashem's Torah in a world that saw the Egyptians continuously in its rear-view mirror. In the course of that learning we gained the confidence we as a people needed to conquer the land Hashem promised and build the House that made us grow in wisdom and number.
It may be written as an obligation to "consider himself as if he had left Egypt" and so many more rules to this Passover thing. But this all starts and is maintained with just one: "And you shall tell your child in that day, 'It is because of this that Hashem did for me when I left Egypt.'"
"In every generation," especially this one that is on the cusp of our ultimate liberation, we face ever-increasing challenges to stay "as numerous" and as bright "as the stars." We must focus every energy of every day like it is "the day you came out of Egypt." In this waywe guarantee our numbers and the potency of our light.
-- Dovid J. Aston
Award-winning Editor, Journalist and Author
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