The Exodus happened in an instant, but the journey to freedom takes much longer than one night.

Yes, it all starts in a big rush – matzah on our backs, doors flung open, a people rushing toward freedom. (We’ve all seen the movie!) But the initial journey stretches for forty years. Freedom, it turns out, is not a moment. It is a process.

We left Egypt quickly. But Egypt did not leave us so quickly.

The Torah’s name for Egypt, Mitzrayim, shares a root with meitzarim, narrow straits, constraints, confinements. Egypt was not only a place; it was a mindset. A set of internal limitations that told a people who they were – and who they could never become. To truly be free required more than crossing a border. It requires transcending those inner boundaries.

We all need Yetziat Mitzrayim, to exit those boundaries. And that is a much longer journey.

This year, that journey feels heavier. We are not just telling the story of difficult departures. We are living them. In recent weeks, Israelis have found themselves on bewildering, circuitous journeys just to get home for Pesach – flying east to go west, crossing into Jordan or even Egypt, retracing ancient paths in reverse just to find a way forward. Back to Egypt…in order to make it to the Seder to experience leaving Egypt!

Layered on top of this are the meitzarim we feel everywhere: the strain of the war with Iran, the disruption of normal........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)