Dearest Children,
This is your father up in heaven. I know you’re busy with the cleaning, prepping and cooking for pesach. I know some or perhaps many of you are stressed, tired, and overwhelmed. The daily grind along with the world events on a global and personal level are enough to tire you out, leaving you with very little energy to prep for this Yom Tov.
I ask you all however, to take a short break and listen as I share my innermost thoughts.
I’d like to take you back several thousand years. You were a nation battered and broken after the over two hundred years in slavery. You were beaten and tortured in every way imaginable by the heinous and cruel Egyptians.
On a spiritual level, you were sinking fast, just one step away from being completely buried and non recognizable as a Jewish nation.
On a more global level, you were a nation looked down upon by all others. You were perhaps one of the most undesirable people.
Despite this all, I saw your inner beauty. I saw the fire, the spark, and that tremendous resilience imbedded deep within your souls. That brilliant light pierced through your darkness. It was something that only you possessed. No other nation possessed that absolute inner beauty.
I saw that and despite all of your flaws and shortcomings, despite being at the lowest place possible, I was completely drawn to you. Even in the world of hell, you were able to maintain that inner purity.
Looking at you, externally being so downtrodden and helpless while internally maintaining that fire, I couldn’t help but fall in love with you. I’ve decided to become engaged to you, give you the Torah as a wedding gift and eventually marry you.
And so, as you clean your homes, I ask you to realize what this is all about. It’s not the actual chometz I care about, but rather what it represents. Matzah and bread both have flour and water. However bread is left to rise while matzah isn’t.
Bread symbolizes something that’s inflated, something that isn’t in its purest form but rather an inflation of something non existent.
Love is the deepest and strongest force on this world. It’s real and whole in every sense. It’s not possible to create an inflated or fake version of it.
Bread also symbolizes sin. In order for us to sin, the evil inclination needs to over inflate the act of sin. Without that you would never commit wrongs.
On the anniversary of our engagement, I’d love for you to feel that true and wholesome love. That deep connection and my burning desire to take you in as a spouse.
I therefore asked for you to abstain from all forms of chometz. It’s the only commandment of which I ask of you to refrain from even looking at it.
It’s because I want you to feel it deep within you and not have or see any trace of sin which causes separation between us.
Pesach is the anniversary of our engagement.
It’s the time I committed to marry you.
It’s the time that my love overpowered anything else.
It’s the time I cleansed you from all evil just like a mother will clean their soiled child with the utmost love.
I’ve removed all your sins, everything superficial, and in its place I’ve instilled true love and connection.
This is the reason I ask of you to constantly remember the exodus from Egypt. It’s not that I’m looking for recognition that I’ve taken you out, but rather I want you to feel that love. The love that defies all of logic. Logically I could’ve chosen another nation as you were in the throes of darkness and impurities. However that inner beauty of yours was something that only you had and that’s what I was so deeply in love with.
I know there are times when you feel worthless.
I know you feel confused and sometimes undeserving of love.
I know you don’t feel like you deserve being a bride.
But I ask of you, at least this one time a year, to know that there’s nothing at all that will take away my love for you just like there’s nothing that will take away a parent’s love for their children.
Pesach and all it’s customs are a deep symbolization of that love and connection between the two of us. That’s what the Seder and everything leading up to it is all about. It’s reliving and feeling it deep within your souls.
Especially this year, when the world seems so dark, hopeless and scary, I want you to know that I’m right there behind you beaming with pride and overwhelmed with love!
This year, just like back in Egypt, the world seems so cruel and dark, yet at the very same time, I see and recognize that same inner spark and beauty you’ve had back then. The present day horrors are perhaps of the biggest levels in many years but at the same time, the beauty of each and every one of you shines so bright! It’s that very same spark that you had back then and regardless of the long galus and the many times there were attempts to extinguish your fire, you’ve kept that aglow.
That, my children is what makes you, you!
That is why you’ve always had and always will have a special place in my heart!
With tremendous pride and respect, your father in heaven.
