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Escape From Egyptian Darkness

Question: Passover [1] begins with the night of the Passover Seder (order)—a ceremony filled with many details. What does the night symbolize?

Answer: The Seder is the order of the exodus from Egypt [2], the course of action that a person must make within himself to break away from his egoism [3], to rise above it, and then come back to it in the days of counting the Omer (Sefirat Omer), to correct all his egoistic desires.

Question: If I were your grandson, what advice would you have given me in light of the holiday of Pesach?

Answer: Learn how to break away from your ego.

Question: But what is wrong with my ego?

Answer: It overshadows all your life, and you need to leave it and run away from it. If you do not learn how to do this, you will be getting blows that will nonetheless teach you to escape from it, but it is a very hard, bitter, and long study.

Question: What is the ego?

Answer: The ego is your bad attitude towards other people. You can have ten meals a day, have a family and children, build a palace for yourself, be a billionaire—this is not considered the ego.

The ego means that you want to use a person who is like you to his detriment, in order to rise above him, to suppress him. Ego is measured only in relation to the evil use of others.

Question: What is “the night of Passover Seder“?

Answer: The “night of Passover Seder” is a break, an escape from evil use of others. This night symbolizes that we come to life in the Egyptian darkness and get blows because of our ego. Pharaoh within us undergoes blows.

Imagine that your body receives blows, illness, disappointments, problems from children, from family, from relatives, from parents and grandchildren, from everything that exists. The unfortunate Pharaoh, i.e., your nature is suffering so much that you want to escape from it: “It is better to die than have such a life!” This is Egyptian darkness.

And suddenly out of this darkness, it is revealed that we can rise above it—and then I run away. I flee in a hurry and care about nothing. This is the exodus from Egypt. This is what we celebrate: the fact that the exit, like the eye of a needle, has been opened to us and through it we can escape from there. It is such a hardship!

But we can come to this hard life because we think, understand, and study, and then we can recognize great evil within a small one. Similarly, people listen to lectures about the danger of smoking, and they realize they should not bring themselves to poisoning and severe illnesses; they recognize this evil in advance and escape. We can do the same thing with “Egypt.” And if not, then we will feel our life in utter darkness, especially the people of Israel [4].

Let’s examine ourselves and reveal that we are in the grip of our ego, called “Pharaoh [5],” and therefore we will not have a good life if we continue to obey it. Let’s decide as soon as possible, that we must run away from it, escape from the power of Pharaoh existing within each of us, from the power of our ego, at least to break away from it.

If we accept this decision together, it will be very easy for us because all the people come out of Egypt. Let’s come to public agreement, run away, and rise above evil attitude towards each other. Then our life in the country will become completely different. Happy Passover!
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 3/24/15

Related Material:
Is A Person Free Or A Slave To His Nature? [6]
Passover Is A Reminder Of The Future [7]
“Why Is This Night Different From All Other Nights?” [8]