Why Does Passover Last Seven Days?

Seven days represent the seven Sefirot, which are all the levels of our soul.

On the first day of Passover, we exit our egoistic intention for self-benefit alone, which Egypt represents, and we continue exiting this self-serving intention on each successive day until we reach a complete detachment from the control of egoism. We accordingly approach the Red Sea, and become ready to leap into it in order to completely detach ourselves from egoism, i.e., from Egypt.

Egypt is the final frontier of the corporeal egoistic world beyond which lies an arbitrary line called “the Machsom” (“barrier”). By crossing this barrier, we start feeling the spiritual qualities of love, bestowal and connection. We then undergo a transformation where we think how we can increasingly realize ourselves in those spiritual qualities through others. As a result, in these qualities, we start feeling that we become filled with the highest possible spiritual quality, the Creator.

What Is the Meaning of Eating Matzah During Passover?

Matzah is unleavened bread that is made in a special way, with minimal water needed to make leaven. It is baked and eaten in remembrance of the Exodus from Egypt and symbolizes our swift inner transition in our attitude to each other and to life in general, from egoism to altruism, i.e., from the desire to enjoy for self-benefit alone to the desire to bestow.

This egoism-to-altruism transition takes place unexpectedly and suddenly, in what seems to us as the most inappropriate place and time. We undergo an accumulative process where we aspire to such a transition, but we do not see it approaching, and eventually we break free from the control of our egoistic nature, without understanding how it suddenly came about. That is called the “Exodus from Egypt.” We are all in a process toward that transition.