Passover

Tomorrow evening at sunset marks the start of Passover - פֶּסַח . Passover commemorates the story of the Exodus, in which the ancient Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt.

Passover requires each Jew to imagine being a slave, and then achieving freedom; to remember "we were slaves".

At the start of the Second World War Rabbi Philip R. Alstat wrote:

"And yet, even in this hour of disaster and degradation, it is still helpful to "visualize oneself among those who had gone forth out of Egypt." It gives stability and equilibrium to the spirit. Only our estranged kinsmen, the assimilated, and the de-Judaized, go to pieces under the impact of the blow....But those who visualize themselves among the groups who have gone forth from the successive Egypts in our history never lose their sense of perspective, nor are they overwhelmed by confusion and despair.... It is this faith... which gives the oppressed the strength to outlive the oppressors and to endure until the day of ultimate triumph when we shall "be brought forth from bondage unto freedom, from sorrow unto joy, from mourning unto festivity, from darkness unto great light, and from servitude unto redemption"

Hag Samayech.

Happy Passover.