Passover History (Pesach, Pesah)
In Jewish tradition and history, Pesach is one of the festivals noted for its diversity and many meanings. It is a festival that commemorates past slavery and the Exodus from Egypt; it is the national unity festival of our people in the melting pot of distress and salvation; the festival of the greatness of the Jewish family which knows the wonder of being together as a family; it is the spring festival in which the blossoming of nature symbolizes the renewal and awakening of a people delighting in life. Above all it is the festival of freedom, the freedom of every single Jewish individual and the freedom of the entire Jewish people.
Not with standing, it is incumbent on every one of us, teacher and educator, principal and education worker in every place, to ask ourselves once again whether we fulfill in practice, in our lives, this freedom and the exodus from bondage to salvation; are we really free? Can a Jew be completely free when he or she still dwells in a foreign country? Does not freedom mean the ability of a person to live and work in his or her country in the context of language, culture, tradition and customs, handed down from his or her forefathers, which also constitute the basic elements of true and complete freedom?
When we sit down together on the Seder night, we and our children, let us remember that only in the Land of Israel and in the State of Israel is it possible to leave the bondage of the Diaspora completely and to achieve true internal and external liberation, together with the rest of our people, who were gathered in and came from all the corners of the earth to the Promised Land, just as our forefathers did when they came out of Egypt.