From Slavery to Inner Freedom: The Hidden Spiritual Meaning Behind Passover Preparations

Isn’t it ironic that the preparations for Passover the holiday when our ancestors went from slavery to freedom, sometimes make us feel as though we are moving from freedom back into servitude…

If you relate to that feeling, listen carefully.

Rabbi Aharon Turchin once walked with his companion past a large courtyard in Jerusalem where streams of water were pouring from a home’s drainage pipe. The companion remarked that it was a terrible waste that women were using so much water for Passover cleaning. The rabbi responded: “These are not streams of water flowing from Jewish homes, they are rivers of faith.”

Think about it for a moment. Why do we clean for Passover? Because spring has arrived? No. Because Pesach is coming! All the effort surrounding Passover cleaning stems from beautifying the mitzvah of “no chametz shall be seen,” and that is faith in its purest form.

To understand why the preparations for the holiday can actually be an expression of freedom rather than bondage, we first need to understand what true freedom is, how our ancestors achieved it, and how it manifests in our lives today.

A Puzzling Question About Freedom

The Haggadah teaches: “If the Holy One, blessed be He, had not taken our ancestors out of Egypt, then we, our children, and our grandchildren would still be enslaved to Pharaoh in Egypt.”

How is that possible? The Sages teach that Jewish women in Egypt gave birth to at least six children at once. By simple numbers alone, we could have grown strong enough to overthrow Egypt and leave on our own. So what does it mean that without God we would still be enslaved today?

The Haggadah also states: “A person is obligated to see himself as though he personally left Egypt,” a ruling codified by the Rambam.

How can we imagine ourselves leaving Egypt if we cannot truly grasp what Egyptian slavery was? Viktor Frankl once wrote about the horrors of the Holocaust: “A person who did not live through it can hardly comprehend how little value human life held in the camps.” If so, how can we claim to feel as though we ourselves left Egypt?

The Slavery Behind the Slavery

The Ohr HaChaim explains that the enslavement of Israel was not merely physical. The deeper bondage was spiritual. According to his words, Egypt’s spiritual force clung to the holiness of Israel and held it captive. Only when God struck the “firstborn of impurity” did the spiritual grip break, allowing Israel to leave.

Even without delving into Kabbalah, we can understand the message: the physical slavery of Israel was a result of a deeper spiritual enslavement. When the spirit was redeemed, the body followed.

Spiritual Bondage

Egyptian slavery was not caused by demographic weakness or military inferiority. Even massive population growth would not have freed Israel. The true exile was in the soul in the narrow confines of consciousness. Without Divine intervention to redeem their spirit, their bodies would have remained enslaved indefinitely.

If the nature of Egyptian bondage was primarily spiritual rather than physical, then every one of us can and must see ourselves leaving Egypt each year.

We may never understand the physical suffering of our ancestors, but we can recognize their spiritual struggle. They descended to the forty nine gates of impurity, while in our generation we often feel as though we have crossed even deeper thresholds. Yet unlike them, we possess the Torah and through it we can still rise.

Defining Freedom and Slavery

Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler explains that a slave is someone who must work but does not own the fruits of his labor. Any action focused solely on worldly pursuits becomes a form of servitude, because the soul does not truly benefit from material gain.

A person must work for livelihood, but excessive attachment to material pursuits enslaves the spirit. The more time one spends chasing fleeting distractions, the more one can sense the level of inner bondage.

Therefore the Sages declared: “There is no truly free person except one who engages in Torah.” The Torah teaches how to balance body and soul so that neither comes at the expense of the other. One who achieves that balance becomes genuinely free.

Psychologist Daniel Goleman once observed that even in the harshest prison camps, one part of a person remained free: their consciousness. Freedom is not merely a condition; it is a choice. It results from mastering desires, refining character, and choosing good.

When the mind is free, the body becomes grateful.

The Freedom Within the Effort

We can now understand how Passover becomes a school for freedom.

In order to fulfill the mitzvah of removing chametz, Jewish homes prepare extensively, and naturally this can create pressure and tension. But what determines whether we feel enslaved is not the work itself, but the state of our consciousness.

Stepping out of our comfort zone, offering help, holding back a harsh word during moments of stress, creating a positive atmosphere, and giving generously, are all acts of freedom.

This truth applies not only to Passover, but to the entire year.