By: Chani Smoller
It is Rosh Chodesh ניסן, the month of new beginnings, of leaving our own personal limitations, and the month of Iyh, our collective redemption!! As human beings with two opposing forces within us, our G-dly soul + our animal soul, we are often subject to and may find ourselves in a state of "slavery": slavery to our urges and desires, feeling like were giving up control to the strong willed "Pharaoh" within us that is constantly bossing us around! The encompassing energy of the month of ניסן is that of breaking free of our slavery, and liberating ourselves, just as the Jewish people, all of those years ago, were liberated from their slavery in Egypt. The Zodiac of ניסן is Aries- טלה. טלה is a ram- and a baby Ram? is a lamb! On the 10th of ניסן, the Jewish people in Egypt took lambs, which were worshiped by the Egyptians- and tied them up in their homes. On the 15th of ניסן, they slaughtered and roasted this lamb. Fire/ אש is the element of Aries: fire in it of itself is a pretty versatile way of expressing emotion: there is fire that depicts anger, fire of success, fire of lust and so on. The only way to fight a negative fire- or negative passion, is to combat it with a positive passion-the Rachmal teaches, that when one feels depressed, we should combat that feeling by acting happy- replacing the fire of sadness that consumes ones mind, with a fire of joy. Conducting ourselves with a passionate and fiery joy results in our brains releasing endorphins and serotonin, that give us a high- so we see that the way way we project our emotions really results in the way our body responds. The name Pesach is referred to in English as " Passover" and this idea of passing over- can be brought down into our daily application; the same way Hashem passed over the Jewish homes in Egypt when conducting the 10th plague- we too have the ability, to Passover, to transcend the bounds of our nature, to elevate our minds and outlooks, to one of positivity and joy. We are enabled with the potential to flee these bounds, that we all have, the challenges holding us back, to liberate ourselves from past behaviors, habits and limitations. The roasting of the Lamb, which was the G-d of the Egyptians, whose culture glorified and was focused on the ego- this roasting of the lamb represents the destruction of Ego: and were not dosing it in a fire of negativity and self-hate, were sacrificing it, and letting it diminish, in the face of our positive fire+ that fire of self work and refinement! The Roasted lamb was then eaten with Matzah and Marror: according to the Zohar, Matza, a thin and unleavened food represents the reduction of the ego, of a deflated sense of self. Marror- represents overcoming the bitterness: the word מרור has the same numeric value of מות= 446. After All of this intensity, we are presented with the actualization of our liberation: on the first day of Pesach, we daven the Prayer over טל- dew. Dew is water- the diametric opposite of fire. Dew represents rebirth, a new day, a bright and fresh morning. The idea of טל is the idea of renewal: We have the potential to renew ourselves, to leave our state of slavery, to be renewed in an era of redemption. Essentially, the whole idea of ניסן is the idea of becoming free from our self- imposed slavery; from גלות to גאולה!
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