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Every year for the past 3,000 years, in times of persecution as in times of calm, Jews have gathered together to celebrate the holiday of Passover, in which we commemorate the miracles G-d performed in emancipating us from centuries of mind-numbing Egyptian slavery and oppression.

Tonight, Wednesday April 8th, Jews the world over will begin celebrating the eight day festival of Pesach by eating matzah as our ancestors had; recounting the story of our liberation to our children through texts and song; drinking four cups of wine, one for each aspect of freedom; eating bitter herbs as a reminder of the bitterness and tears of bondage; and reclining in royalty.

This is not a theatrical commemoration of an antiquated event, but a timeless and potent step-by-step guide to self-liberation. Our sages teach that in each and every generation every individual must view himself as though he just made his grand exit from Egypt. The Hebrew word for Egypt, Mitzrayim, is rooted in the word meitzar meaning boundaries, constraints and limitations.

No matter our mobility or autonomy, a part of us remains subjugated to our own inner “task master” – the slave driver within that restricts us to habit, shackles us to our fears, and relegates us to personal bias. Pharaoh’s Egypt we’ve long escaped; it’s our own individual boundaries that we must transcend daily.

Unlike when we left Egypt, personal breakthroughs rarely come through revealed sea-splitting intervention. It will be through determination and perseverance that we split our own seas and cross through on dry land.

Here are just three steps, each a tool, pulled from the 15 steps of the Passover guide, to briefly illustrate the relevance and potential of the Passover experience and assist you in your personal exodus.

Leggo your ego

Dearest brother, dearest sister,

Happy birthday!

This past Rosh Hashana was 5,769 years to the day on which, on that
sixth day of creation, the first human being was created. And so it is
the birthday of all of humanity.

Only on the sixth day of creation, after creating the heavens and the
earth, the land and the sea, and all mineral, plant and animal life,
did G-d create Adam and Chava (as one originally and then later
separated). The whole universe was created in all its intelligence and
glory to be the theater in which G-d's sole actor, the human being,
would take center stage.

Why did G-d initially create just one human being? Surely the Creator
of the universe could have populated the earth, as He wishes it to be,
by creating many men and women at once? Or at the very least He could
have created Adam and Chava as two separate individuals? So why, then,
did G-d create the sum total of humanity as one singular being?

This, our sages teach, is to emphasize the supreme importance of a
singular life. To G-d it would have been worthwhile to create the
entire world if even for one single human being.

As Maimonides put it: "A person must see himself and the world as
equally balanced on two ends of the scale; by doing one good deed, he
tips the scale and brings for himself and the entire world redemption
and salvation." (Maimonides, Laws of Repentance, 3:4).

And in the words of the Mishne: "A person is responsible to say that
the entire world was created for me; when you save a life you save the
universe." (Sanhedrin 37a).

This emphasizes the Divine responsibility and indispensability that
each and every one of us has here on planet Earth. Each of us has
something wholly unique to contribute that no other human being can.

On a personal note, not only do each of you make up my world, but you
mean the world to me. You've taught me invaluable lessons, by deed and