Excerpting: “The Haggadah with Stories” by Rabbi Nachman Seltzer. ArtScroll Mesorah Publications. 2025. 410 pages. ISBN-10: 1422643174.

(Courtesy of Artscroll) Pesach is called “Zeman Cheiruseinu” — the Season of our Freedom — and freedom is one of the main themes of Seder night and Pesach in general. Every year, when we celebrate our exodus from Egypt, we perform a wide array of mitzvos that take us back in time and enable us to feel like we are currently in the process of being freed yet again. The feeling of freedom is one of the main elements contributing to the amazing experience that is Seder night.

Yet the Maharal (Gevuros Hashem, ch. 61) raises a powerful question.

While it’s wonderful that we were freed from the Egyptian exile, and certainly we need to thank Hashem for taking us out from there, right now we’re still in exile, and since that’s the case — why are we celebrating?

It’s like a person who was released from prison and is eventually forced to return to his cell. Even though he is still in prison, he makes an annual celebration on the date he was originally released. But he’s back in prison, no longer free. What exactly does he have to celebrate?

Clearly, we need to understand why we are celebrating our freedom from Egypt with such joy when in reality we’re not free at all.

Before we explain what we’re celebrating on Seder night, we need to first understand the true definition of freedom.

If we look around at people the world considers the most successful, it would seem that they can do whatever they wish. Hop on a plane and go wherever they want. Eat at the fanciest restaurants. Live in whatever country or city they choose. Never worry about paying a bill. The wealthiest people must be free because nobody can stop them from doing whatever they want.

But in truth, money doesn’t make a person free, and cheirus doesn’t mean having the ability to do whatever one wants. In fact, the majority of the people in the world, including the wealthiest, aren’t free — because they are slaves to their desires. While a person might possess the financial resources to sail through life in very nice style, he is often stuck in the mire of slavery — the slavery that exists in the person’s own mind, because his desires have control over him.

And so we return to the Maharal’s question:

What are we celebrating on Seder night? What is the freedom over which we are rejoicing?

Chazal teach us that only someone who learns Torah can ever truly be considered free (Avos 6:2) — and it’s only the Torah that provides the ability to release a person from his own desires. Since Hashem is the One Who created sickness — or, in this case, bondage to desires — it makes sense that He would be the One Who can tell us how to heal ourselves, and how to free ourselves as well.

When we left Egypt, Hashem released us from living life purely in a physical state and gave us the ability to rise up and elevate ourselves — to the point where we were actually able to take control of our material desires. This gift is one of the things that has kept us going throughout the generations of galus until now.

So what are we celebrating?

We’re celebrating the fact that Hashem redeemed us from servitude to Pharaoh, and instead Hashem Himself became our Master, so that we now became servants of Hashem instead. And the incredible thing about becoming servants of Hashem is that we now have the ability to live truly free lives.

Free to release ourselves from our material desires.

Free to grow on a regular basis to become the best people we could be.

And if that’s not cause for celebration — what is?

Rav Amnon Yitzchak gave a speech where he discussed the idea of slavery and what it means for a person to become liberated from the powers that dominate us.

“What does it mean to go from slavery to freedom?” he asked.

He explained that the Exodus from Egypt and the fact that we were freed from servitude was not the main thing. That was not the ultimate example of true freedom. Freedom is the receiving of the Torah and the fact that this can enable us to become liberated from all the outside influences that dominate us and cause us to make choices that are not in our best interests.

And, as always, he illustrated the point with a terrific story:

A Jew came to me (said Rav Amnon Yitzchak) and told me that he wants to keep Shabbat but he can’t, because he can’t manage without smoking.

“Do you know the difference between assur and muttar?” I asked him.

“Of course. You chareidim will tell me smoking is assur, I’m not allowed to smoke on Shabbat. It’s not muttar for me to smoke.”

“Not exactly. It’s muttar for you not to smoke on Shabbat.”

The man looked at me, puzzled.

I explained: “Until now, while you smoked on Shabbat, on our holy day, you were assur. The word ‘assur’ can mean locked up, tied up. You were a prisoner of your addiction. But muttar? ‘Muttar’ can also mean released, freed. The moment you make the decision to keep Shabbat, you will be muttar. You will be a free man — a free man, no longer assur, no longer enslaved to your yetzer hara!”

Reprinted from The Haggadah with Stories by Rabbi Nachman Seltzer with permission from the copyright holder, ArtScroll Mesorah Publications.