|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Passover is not about what happened once in history. It is about what is happening inside you right now.
Therefore, the most important thing about Passover is “What has changed in me this Passover?”
Within each of us there is a powerful, demanding, and unquestioning voice that says: “I am the center. Everything exists for me.” This is Pharaoh. In other words, we should not be satisfied with the thought that Pharaoh is some distant ruler that existed a long time ago. Pharaoh is that which controls us inside of us right now. It is a force that urges us to chase egoistic fulfillments such as honor, control, validation, success, and recognition. It makes us measure our lives according to the questions, “How much did I gain? How much do others admire me?”
Gradually, without noticing, we become enslaved to it.
We begin to live for money, status, approval, and comparison. We check, measure, and compete. Even our thoughts are not free. They are dictated by this inner Pharaoh. Despite all efforts, this endless race after egoistic fulfillments ends up bringing us no fulfillment at all. On the contrary, it leads to emptiness, exhaustion, and to what we today refer to as depression, the darkness of our generation.
These are the “plagues of Egypt.” They are not punishments, but signals. Like an alarm system that plays out within us, they show that our current path cannot lead to happiness. They push us to stop, to question, and to seek another way.
That is where Moses appears. Moses is also within us. It is a small and quiet force that says: “There must be something more. There must be a different way to live.” It pulls us out of self-absorption and directs us toward a positive connection with others, with attitudes of love, care, and kindness dwelling in our connections.
This is the beginning of freedom.
Freedom is not doing whatever we want. Freedom is rising above the inner Pharaoh. It is the ability to step out of the narrow perception of “only me” and enter a wider reality of “us.”
When we begin to shift from self-love to love of others, something opens. What seemed like an impossible barrier, the Red Sea, the boundary of our ego, suddenly parts. A path appears where there was none. And on that path, a new kind of life begins. It is a life not based on constant comparison and competition, but on connection. Not on taking, but on giving. In that connection, we begin to feel something deeper, more stable, and more real, a sense of true fulfillment.
This is the inner exodus.
Therefore, of primary importance, we should view Passover as an inner process playing out within us, and accordingly, we should run the following inner scrutiny:
- Have I recognized my Pharaoh?
- Have I felt the emptiness of serving it?
- Have I heard the voice of Moses within me?
- Have I taken even one step toward connection with others?
Even the smallest step in that direction is the beginning of freedom.
Based on the video “What Has Changed in Me This Passover? Test Yourself” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Posted on Facebook, LinkedIn, Medium, Quora, The Times of Israel, Twitter X