It is so easy to mistake freedom as the ability to do whatever we want. Spiritually speaking, freedom is the fortitude to refrain from doing what we don’t want.
This is a very special week, as it is the holiday of Pesach, the time the Creator Himself took the Israelites out of Egypt, removing them from bondage. At the Kabbalah Centre we teach that while we ourselves may not be in state of physical ‘slavery,’ we all have at least one thing in our lives to which we are bound. We might be enslaved to alcohol, drugs, or other such forms of addiction while for others it could be power, control, or wealth, or even blaming other people. None of us, as long as we are here in this world, are totally immune to the trickery of the dark side, that force which seeks to keep us subjugated, so that we remain stuck, unable to move forward and experience potential of our soul and the totality of the Light.
Yet we know that at the time of the exodus from Egypt, God granted Israelites immunity from this enslaving force, and every year at the same window of time the chains are broken for us as well. Just as the Creator’s divine energy removed the Israelites from their bondage, so too is this same totality of energy available for us in the cosmos this week: Freedom from all that holds us back from the Light. With gift of Light that we receive during Pesach, we too can experience this most divine of privileges.