Maggie's Farm

The meaning of Passover. Extracted from a lovely and profound piece by Bruce Kesler:

Standing before Pharaoh, Moses did not merely demand, in the name of G-d, that he "Let My people go," but "Let My people go, that they may serve Me." What is the significance of this liberating "service"? It means that man, no matter how free of external constraints, is a finite creature, ever subject to the limits of his own nature and character. That to attain true freedom he must therefore transcend his humanity - his emotional, intellectual, even spiritual self - and access the "spark of G-dliness" that is his infinite, supra-human self….

For freedom is more than the drive to escape foreign and negative inhibitors: no matter how free of them we are, we remain defined by the boundaries of self and self-definition. Freedom is the incessant drive to "Passover" these boundaries, to draw on our divine, infinite potential to constantly overreach what we are.