By the Grace of G-d
Dear Friend,
The rush hour train from Manhattan to Brooklyn was jam packed with people, yet strangely enough there seemed to be a few empty seats in the carriage I had entered.
My nose picked up the reason for the vacant seats at about the same time that my eyes noticed the forlorn, filthy human being who was sitting on the subway bench with no one near him on both sides.
I am sure that many people in that train car felt pity for that man just as I did, yet I do not realistically think that anyone did anything concrete to help this person out of his plight and I’m not sure anyone even knew what they could do. Just thinking about how to solve this persons predicament seemed overwhelming. A few stops later the man shuffled out dejectedly, leaving the passengers in my carriage able to breathe easier – quite literally.
Being unaccustomed to seeing these sights, I could not seem to get the sad picture out of my mind and searched for a message that I could extract from this encounter other than the obvious ones centered on charity ….
Then it dawned on me.
Imagine if someone in the subway would have taken the man home, bathed him, clothed him, healed his skin sores and given him a place to call home.
Imagine if it was not just a regular person who was his savior, but it was the king of the country who had taken him into his royal chambers to live right near him. Can you even begin to describe the unimaginable feelings of thankfulness and gratitude that the unfortunate man would have to his royal savior?
This is how our Sages portray ever so vividly what Passover is all about.
We, the Jewish people were like that man in his poor wretched state.
As a people we were enslaved and metaphorically smelly and filthy lying as we were in poverty on the garbage heap in Egypt.
And it was from that abject state of poverty and wretchedness that the great King – G-d Almighty himself -extracted us and rehabilitated us, bringing us into his own private chambers and showing us every sign of love.
This gives us some kind of illustration as to the nature and depth of our collective feeling of gratitude and indebtedness for the miracle of Exodus from Egypt.
The Jewish People practices gratitude in a most incredible way. Our gratitude to G-d has not waned over the years. On the contrary, it has gotten stronger and stronger during the more than three thousand years since our redemption at the time of Pessach.
Join a Seder to express your gratitude to Almighty G-d for his everlasting kindness to us.
Also, make liberation a reality in your life.
What does ‘liberation’ mean to us in a contemporary way?
The same thing it meant to the Jews that were redeemed from Egypt.
No one had ever escaped from Egypt. The Jewish people knew that they were destined to stay stuck in slavery.
The game changer was the liberation that G-d carried out.
So too, in our lives, we are stuck in places from which we cannot extricate ourselves.
For some it may be an addiction that they cannot overcome.
Others may struggle with staying focused on what they ought to do without getting distracted by the glitz and glamor of the things that they are not meant to do.
Examples for inner slavery, abound.
It is critical to be self-aware and notice where one is trapped.
The recognition that we are in some form of slavery is the first step to liberation from that ‘stuckness’.
And the awareness that it is only G-d who can take us out and liberate us from that captive state is the first step of our personal Exodus.
This is available to us every day of the year. And indeed we are instructed to remember the going out of Egypt every day because it is relevant and pertinent at all times.
It gets especially heightened during this time of the year when the Exodus from Egypt took place. At this time in the calendar, the month of Nissan, there is an air and aura and potential in the air for personal liberation.
Here in Thailand, we have multiple Seder options.
In Bangkok click here for options. In Chiang Mai, Ko Samui, Phuket, Pai, Ko Pangan. Preparations are going on full speed ahead.
If you are hosting your own Seder, please make sure to pick up some special handmade round ‘Shmura Matza’ for your Seder plate. It will be my pleasure to provide you with this special Seder Matza for use on Seder nights.
And click here to sell your chametz.
With Blessing,
Rabbi Yosef Kantor