Permit me to begin with a poem:
This year, my freedom lies
deep, so deep within the tunnels.
I dig with both hands wide –
searching for words left unsaid,
for songs long buried
beneath black stones.
There, in the heart’s hollow,
sorrow puts on its holiday dress
and dances with old memories,
with children who’ve forgotten their names,
yet still dream of coming home –
to the scent of Seder dishes.
But through the cracks,
a new meaning begins to bloom:
the meaning of being –
not in perfection,
nor in redemption complete,
but in the daily walk,
the quiet yearning for the sun,
and the choice – not to give up on the heart.
For even the darkness knows –
that spring will always come.
The central mitzvah of Pesach is not only to recount the story of our liberation but to feel freedom in the depths of our being. As it is written:
“In every generation, a person must see themselves as if they personally left Egypt.”
Every aspect of the Seder – the maror, the four cups of wine, the egg, and the matzah – is designed to free us, even if just for one night, and allow us to feel like truly liberated souls. That is the essence of the mitzvah of haseba, reclining: to train our bodies to relax, to rest on pillows, and to experience real release.
Freedom is not mere liberty or escape from obligation. As the psychologist Erik Erikson noted in his book Escape from Freedom, people often run from the burden of liberty. But heirut – liberty, true freedom – is a spiritual labor. It is the courageous work of the soul to escape the inner confines of materialism and ego, and to reconnect with the divine order of a world created with meaning and purpose.
When we live in a state of heirut, we listen to the whisper of our soul and the rhythm of a compassionate heart. We act not out of comfort, conformity, or convenience – but from conscience. Not because something is politically correct, but because it is morally right. This is what it means to be a true human being – a mentsch.
To experience heirut, we must first engage in deep inner cleansing. We must cast out the hametz of the soul – those burdensome thoughts that arise in us and drag us down – and dare to think higher, to dream bigger.
THROUGHOUT OUR history, the people of Israel have known great suffering: wars, pogroms, the horrors of the Holocaust. And yet, we have always risen, not through might, but through spiritual resilience and inner strength.
Am Yisrael Chai!
Even now, as our hearts ache for those still held captive in the tunnels, we are called to hold fast to the vision of freedom. To think it. To feel it. To proclaim, even in darkness: Am Yisrael Chai! The people of Israel live.
On the seventh night of Passover, we recall the miracle of the splitting of the sea. In their long journey from slavery to freedom, the Israelites passed through parted waters – on dry land – on their way to Mount Sinai and the gift of Torah. This was not only a physical passage but a profound spiritual transformation: a people in formation, breaking free from the chains of Egypt (Mitzrayim), from narrowness (tzarut) into expansiveness (rahavut).
This sacred night also brings us close to Yom Hashoah – Holocaust Remembrance Day. We remember the darkest chapter in our history, when the Jewish people faced the abyss of annihilation under Hitler’s Final Solution. Yet from that abyss emerged the miracle of rebirth: the establishment of the State of Israel.
And today, in this land that rose from ashes, we find ourselves in a time of deep sorrow – mourning the fallen, praying for the return of the hostages, and holding close the many wounded who are still healing.
But precisely in these moments of pain, we are called to rise – to liberate ourselves from despair and turn once again toward hope. This is the deeper message of Passover: that even in the shadow of suffering, the human spirit can walk through parted seas toward freedom, resilience, and joy.
The writer is dean of the Faculty of Education and head of the Sal Van-Gelder Center for Holocaust Instruction and Research at Bar-Ilan University.