Question: I have children, including twin boys. They enjoy hurting each other. Their usual state is one brother hurting the other; the offender derives pleasure and delight.

As I understand it, there are three states in Passover. The first is when we take pleasure in dominating others, when our ego, the Pharaoh within us, has a field day.

This is our ordinary state. When we feel that the ego devours and destroys all of us, and this becomes unbearable, the second stage begins, symbolized by matzah, the “bread of affliction.” You call this stage restriction. What is its essence?

Answer: Restriction means that I make a firm decision: I have no choice, I cannot continue to behave this way toward others. I must put an end to it and break free from the rule of my ego.

This stage includes the recognition of evil—that I am under the control of the ego—and the understanding that I have no choice, no other salvation but to exit it, to escape from it.

Question: And what do we do then? How do we relate to each other?

Answer: We—that is, many people within the people of Israel (let’s not speak about the whole world yet)—decide that we must rise above our ego, stop using it, and we strongly desire that this will happen. This is called the “recognition of evil.”

Question: What is the essence of this ascent?

Answer: We make every effort to stop using our ego; we compel ourselves to do so.

Question: Does this mean that our “food” becomes poor, like matzah?

Answer: One could say so.

Question: Now, after the stage of restriction, when we have “eaten matzah,” meaning we have forced ourselves to treat each other well, suddenly a new space is revealed to us. And after Passover the third stage begins, a time when we return to our ego again, but now we enjoy giving to one another and receive the joy of life from this.

Answer: Moreover, I begin to reveal life within the level of connection between us: the level of love and unity. This is what exiting Egypt and entering the upper world is. I reveal the force of bestowal and love, which is called Elokim, the Creator, the upper force.

This is not some image we imagine somewhere in the heavens, but the relationships between us. Within them, we feel a pleasure 620 times greater than before when we derived pleasure within our ego by exploiting others.

Now our pleasure lies in delighting others. And in this, we feel infinity. After all, how much can we enjoy within our ego? But in order to delight everyone, you have an infinite space.
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From KabTV’s conversation “New Life 539 – Jewish Culture: Between Chametz (Leavened Food) And Matzah,” 3/27/15

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