Shalom and thank you for your question. You point out correctly that the Pesach festival is celebrated in Australia on the same date as all over the world – barring a few hours difference according to time zones. This is because although there is a certain importance to the holiday falling out during the spring, that is not the primary thrust of Pesach. Moreover, the land of Israel – being the land of the Holy Temple and the Jewish nation, takes precedence, so that when Pesach is celebrated at it’s appointed time in Israel, this has a spiritual influence on the whole world.
We can look a little deeper into the essence of the Pesach holiday. What is it’s meaning for the Jewish nation? In Exodus chapter 13 it says “And on that day you shall tell your child; it is because of this the L-rd did this for me when I went out of Egypt…” This verse is the basis for the idea mentioned by the Sages in the Haggadah (the text read, studied and discussed on the Seder night, the first night of Passover) that “in every generation a person must see himself as having been taken out of Egypt.” What this means is that the Jewish nation collectively relives the Exodus from being slaves in Egypt every year on the Passover (Pesach) holiday. Why is this necessary? It happened so long ago – thousands of years in fact?
If we look even further we see that in the Hebrew liturgy, the Jewish prayers make many and daily references to the Exodus from Egypt, it is a recurring theme in Judaism in general. Why?
The Hebrew for Egypt is Mitzrayim מצרים. This is connected to the word ‘meitzarim’ – straits.
The human being constantly finds him/herself confined by some sort of straits. It could be financial problems, marital or other relationships, health issues or a whole gamut of possibilities. There can be external factors like war or oppression – as was the case in ancient Egypt or in more recent dictatorships, or, as is all too common, the straits of personal difficulties such as addiction – whether it be to substances or to the internet for example. A disturbing statistic I came across recently was that the more internet ‘friends’ a person has, the more likely that person is to actually be lonely! Whatever the issue, we all daily face constraints- straits – which hold us back from the instruction in Psalms ch. 100:2 “worship G-d in joy”. Very often it can be a matter of attitude adjustment. In any case, how do we get OUT of these constraints?
There is a saying in Hebrew that the question is half of the answer. The realization that we ARE imprisoned by our own fears or anxiety related to real or perceived situations, the very realization itself, enables us to reach out to G-d and request help. We are also enjoined to realize that when we DO get help – it is G-d who enables us to overcome our challenges. One can see this very clearly in the 12 step programs for overcoming various forms of addiction. On the one hand, one must take responsibility for taking action, and on the other hand, one must realize that only by admitting one’s frailty and submitting oneself to G-d can one overcome the test.
We need to take responsibility for carrying out our God-given missions in life. For Jewish people this is by means of using and developing our personal resources in the framework of the six hundred and thirteen commandments of the Torah, and for non-Jews it means using and developing our resources within the framework of the Seven Noahide Laws. The purpose of the above being to rectify the world so that we can reach the ultimate goal of a world where spirituality will be revealed physicalit will be revealed as a help to the above rather than a hindrance.
So, daily we connect with the fact that we are in ‘straits’ – each person according to their individual circumstances, as well as connecting with the idea that G-d, the Creator of EVERYTHING, can take us out. We have to truly desire it, and that in itself can help us access help from above.
The festival of Pesach gives us a special bonus energy to remember the importance of the Exodus and how it relates to us.
Spring can be in our hearts!
By the way, I happen to be from Australia, and although there are changes in global climate, I believe that Pesach time in Australia is still very pleasant although it is – theoretically, autumn and not spring!
