If it is not Purim yet, why are we thinking about Passover?
Actually, we think about Passover every day! Jews are obsessed with Passover. Every day we do things to remember the Exodus from Egypt. Rosh Chodesh, which has become known as a “girls’ thing,” was the first Mitzvah to be established, even before the Exodus. Why? It is so that we should know for future generations when Passover falls out, so that it falls out in the spring. And the Torah tells us to wear Tefillin, a “men’s thing,” every day so that we remember the Exodus from Egypt every day.
What is the obsession with the Exodus? Granted it was a great miracle, but why isn’t it enough to remember the story once a year when the holiday comes around, just as we remember the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai? Or the story of Purim?
The Exodus from Egypt was unique in the sense that it was not an experience that benignly happened to us, with the Jewish people as observers, even if it affected us and made a great impression on us. The Exodus was different. We were not only part of the experience; we were the experience itself! The transformation happened outside of us and inside of us. Egypt, in Hebrew is Mitzroyim. Change the vowels, and you have the Hebrew word Meitzorim, limitations and boundaries. The Exodus was not only from within the confines of the physical borders of Egypt, but from the personal limitations and self-imposed boundaries that we put on ourselves. Going out of Egypt is not a one-time success story; it is a daily battle. It takes faith in G-d, and faith in oneself to overcome our struggles and overcome the challenges of life, and make it through our own exile.
This is why an integral part of Judaism is to remember every single day, even multiple times a day, that G-d took us out of Egypt so that we know that, we too, with the help of G-d, can overcome our own personal Egypt, and celebrate our own exodus.
Shabbat Shalom.