Why we do Pesach

We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and God our Lord took us out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.
-Pesach Haggadah

With a strong hand, and with an outstretched arm, for His mercy endureth for ever.
-Psalms 36:12

The story of Pesach (aka the Festival of Freedom) is a great story. It’s been made into innumerable movies, and there are probably 1000s of memes. It is considered the greatest story of an escape to freedom of all time.

Yet the story of Pesach is not as simple as slaves going free.

There are two lessons that we learn from the story of leaving Egypt –יציאת מצרים —both equal in importance.

The first reason is two-fold, and again, both reasons are equal in importance: 1) to give us the Torah, and 2) to bring us to and give us the Land of Israel. The freedom that G-d gave us was not the freedom to go to Karaoke bars, eat sushi, and sunbathe on the beach in Thailand, but the freedom to do mitzvot in the His Land. That was His plan, and for us to remember this for all times, G-d gave us the mizvot of Tefillin and Mezuzah (read what the words on the inside say).

The second lesson that we learn when G-d took us out of Egypt is to show the nations of the world, once and for all, that G-d is in charge.

While He wants his creation, Man, to run the world, ultimately it is G-d who is in charge, capable of and willing to change the course of nature. Sometimes – many times – we don’t recognize His miracles, sometimes there are those who deny His miracles. But because of what He did for us in Egypt, we know that G-d is always watching us, caring what goes on in our lives, and – when we let Him – guiding us.

When G-d created the universe, all living beings knew that G-d was the Supreme Being. Yet, as time passed, people forgot that G-d was manifest in all things. There were those who denied G-d’s existence entirely, and there were those who agreed that G-d might have created the universe, but since then, He’s been on one long coffee break, and doesn’t really care what happens to us mortals.

By the time Bnei Yisrael were slaves in Egypt, suffering, weary, they were unable to believe that their salvation would come. The Egyptians felt that they were stronger than any god; that they could not be destroyed. Through great miracles, culminating in the splitting of the Sea, G-d brought Bnei Yisrael out of Egypt. G-d’s greatness was recognized not only by Bnei Yisrael, but by all the nations of the time. In a once in a lifetime show, G-d changed the course of nature. To this day, we remember these momentous events, that with יד חזקה and זרוע נטויה, with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, G-d brought us out of Egypt, out of bondage to serve Him in His Land.

These are bleak times. There are people who deny us our right to our Land. There are people who deny us our right and ridicule our desire to worship G-d. There are people who deny the very existence of G-d. Therefore, it is even more imperative to remember that G-d took us out of Egypt to do His mitzvot, to live in His Land, and to be a light to the nations. When all is going well, it’s easy to believe in G-d, but now, when godlessness is all around us, when we are weary and under attack, now is the time to turn to G-d, because only there is where our salvation lies.