By RABBI SHMUEL OZHEKH
There is something uniquely beautiful about the anticipation of the Pesach Seder.
We look forward to sitting together – family gathered around the table, children asking questions, familiar melodies filling the room. (And let’s not even mention the matzah ball soup). Pesach is one of the most observed and cherished moments in the Jewish calendar. Even Jews who feel distant during the year somehow find their way back to the Seder table.
But what is it really about?
Is Pesach simply a commemoration of something that happened thousands of years ago – a historic memory we preserve out of loyalty and nostalgia? Or is it something far more personal?
The Haggadah makes a striking demand: “In every generation, a person is obligated to see themselves as if they personally left Egypt.”
Not our ancestors. Not a distant people long ago. Us.
Egypt – Mitzrayim – shares a Hebrew root with meitzarim, meaning ‘narrow places’ or ‘constrictions’. Pesach is not only about national slavery; it is about the inner places where we feel stuck. The habits we cannot break. The fears we carry. The parts of ourselves that feel small, reactive, or disconnected.
Pesach asks a deeply personal question: Where is your Egypt?
The Seder is not just a history lesson. It is meant to facilitate our own inner exodus.
This leads to a deeper understanding of Judaism itself. It is not about performance. It is about integration. Not about occasional or tangential traditions, but about real and meaningful transformation.
The Seder table becomes a space where we can ask: Am I living in alignment with who I truly am?
We say in the Haggadah, “Kulanu mesubim” – we are all reclining. Why do we lean? The mitzvah of haseivah (reclining) is a physical expression of freedom (Pesachim 108a). But on a deeper level Rav Kook explains that it is a statement, that just as reclining reflects being settled and present, same to the practices of the seder and of Judaism in general invites us to move from feeling uprooted and scattered to being spiritually grounded and at home within ourselves.
For me, this was one of the most powerful shifts: seeing Torah not merely as obligation, but as a path of self-discovery. It is where I can heal, refine my character, and grow into a more whole human being. It is where I can feel internally at home.
The verse in Tehillim says, “Ashrei ha’am shekacha lo, ashrei ha’am sheHashem Elokav” – “Fortunate is the nation for whom this is so; fortunate is the nation whose God is Hashem” (Tehillim 144:15). Rav Kook explains that these two phrases are inseparable. You cannot have kacha lo –
a sense that “this fits me, this is my place” – without Hashem Elokav, a living relationship with God. And you cannot have a meaningful relationship with God if it remains abstract and disconnected from who you are.
For a Jew, feeling internally at home and spirituality go together.
Pesach reminds us that our connection to Judaism is not only historical – it is current. Not only about what once happened, but about what is happening within us now.
When we recline at the Seder table, we are not escaping into the past. We are being invited into ourselves.
The question is not whether our ancestors left Egypt. The question is whether we are ready to leave ours. ●
Shmuel Ozhekh is the Rabbi of Ohr Somayach and Rejewvinate, founder of the Eden Meditation App, and author of the Prayer Companion Series, which reveals the kabbalistic and deeper significance of some of the most important prayers in Judaism. (edenmeditation.com, rejewvinate.com)
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