Matza: In Order To Escape

The Passover holiday stands at the head of all holidays and all times in the spiritual process because it symbolizes the exit from the desire to enjoy to the desire to bestow or more precisely from the desire to receive for your own sake toward the desire to receive for the sake of bestowal. That is why Passover is so important; after all, it is an entrance to the spiritual world, to the sensation and understanding of spirituality.

Before this, a person goes through many states, starting from his original nature when he is inside the desire to enjoy and does not even realize it. Then, he begins to ask why he lives. That is, a simple animalistic existence does not satisfy him and he wants to understand the meaning of life, its source, its cause and purpose. An animal does not ask such questions; this is the beginning of the birth of a human.

Entering spirituality begins with the fact that a person suddenly feels that he can no longer think about himself and wants to perform actions outside of his egoism. Passover symbolizes the entrance into a new world, the beginning of a new state, Lishma, the beginning of bestowal, faith, acquiring the property of Bina according to which we begin to work.¹

Only when a person feels and understands that he is unable to act for the sake of bestowal can he be considered in exile. It is an exile from the property of bestowal, which he wants to acquire and cannot. Only this measures the extent and severity of the exile.²

Humanity is divided into three parts. The first part are those in whom a point in the heart has already manifested and it leads a person to Kabbalah or makes him search for it. The other part still does not understand why all this is necessary. The third part fights exclusively for corporeal realization, without touching the intention, for maintaining the intention for their own sake. On this basis, humanity can be divided into many groups, nations, and all kinds of currents.³

The Egyptian inside of me convinces me that the main thing is to perform the actions that the Torah demands of us without paying attention to the intention, that is, exclusively corporeal commandments. If I do not ask about the results of my work, it means that I am an Egyptian, that I work according to the Egyptian inside of me. If I start taking care of the intention, then I find myself in Egypt as a slave, in exile from the spiritual world.

There is a spiritual reality in which everything is for the sake of bestowal, but I exist in my egoism. The extent to which it bothers me, more or less, determines my place in the spiritual process until I reach the state when such a life becomes worse than death for me and I feel that I have to exit the selfish intention. This means that I am already on the verge of liberation, at the exit from Egyptian exile.

My inner Egyptians are holding me and convincing me that I must continue as before and everything will be fine: the main thing is the action and the intention doesn’t matter. If I agree with this, I turn into an Egyptian. But if the inner struggle for intention arises in me, then I see that I am under the power of the Egyptians and I wish to get out of this slavery. I realize that the main thing is not the action, but the intention, and I must get rid of the intention for my own sake. This means I need the light that reforms and to flee from Egypt.

I am ready for anything, just not to remain in the egoistic intention. I do not need anything but the ability to perform this action. I have already broken away from the intention for my own sake, but have not yet reached the intention for bestowal. I still do not know what bestowal is and to whom to bestow, but I am already at the exit.⁴

The shift from an Egyptian to Israel means that I no longer have the strength to perform an action. I do not want to perform it for the sake of the ego, but I still do not know how to perform it for the sake of bestowal; therefore I do not know what to do. This is the exit from Egypt, in total darkness, when we do not know what to do. Then salvation comes.⁵

It is written that the Egyptians work with white bricks without a single speck or dirt. If I egoistically add brick after brick to my work every day, then I build a beautiful snow-white building without any dirt or shadow of doubt, feeling completely holy. The Egyptians in Egypt cannot experience any awareness of evil because they take an example from what the whole world is doing; what else does a person need?

These are seven years of satiation—when a person joins the work of Egyptians self-righteousness and secure about one’s success. He does not even realize that he is acting egoistically. Such awareness is already the result of the impact of the light that reforms that constantly illuminates in small portions, gradually promoting him. “Many pennies join into a great amount.”⁶

If there is no strength to work, then only one thing remains: a prayer. Appealing to the Creator solves all problems. After all, the purpose of everything that happens with us is to oblige us to contact the Creator. In Egypt we acquire all sorts of means and methods of connection with the Creator. We must find the solution to every hardship that Egypt poses before us through new connection with the Creator.⁷

The severity of the work depends only on the intention. If the intention is for the sake of the Creator, for the sake of bestowal, then you fly like on wings, feeling no heaviness in the work, as if you’ve left the Earth’s field of gravity and soar in space. If the work is hard for you, then you are carrying the wrong suitcase and are not aiming at the Creator.⁸

We receive the influence of the Creator through the whole broken soul of Adam HaRishon. The Creator perceives only the whole soul together. Meanwhile, I can have an initial, personal, and very limited connection with the Creator, but it still reaches me through the common soul.

“… the upper Light is in complete rest,” that is, it fulfills the common Kli. But I attain a connection with the Creator in the measure of my connection with the common soul. Suppose I have connected with one of the twenty billion, to this extent I attain a contact that always goes through the common connection. The Creator is inside all the created beings in a perfect form because everyone has already reached the end of correction, and I connect with this state.⁹

What is the difference between Matza and bread? Matza is also bread, only bread of poverty, made solely from flour and water. Even the water in it is in limited quantities. You cannot make bread without water at all, and therefore, water is added in a minimal quantity, just to knead the dough and not let it sour. This is a sign that we still cannot work with our desires for the sake of bestowal, but we no longer want to work for the sake of receiving. That is, it is a kind of intermediate state: neither there nor here. Matzasymbolizes fulfilling in order to escape.¹⁰
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/21/19, Writings of Rabash, Vol. 1, Article 14, “The Connection between Passover, Matza, and Maror” (1987)