A prayer for Pesach, the festival of freedom

Master of the World, Pesach is approaching, the festival of freedom. I prepare for it at home, cleaning and searching, and at the same time I ask myself in what I am still enslaved.

There are habits in me that hold me more tightly than any master: a screen I cannot put down, anger that arrives before I think, fear of what people will say. Let me go out from them, even one step, as one goes out from a narrow place into open space.

And there is also a quieter slavery: the race after more, the need for everyone's approval, the fear of changing something I am used to. Let me see that too.

And just as I burn the chametz out of the house, let me burn away something of my pride. To be a little simpler, a little less puffed up.

On Seder night, let me sit with my family in joy and patience. Let the children ask and receive an answer; let the story not be a ceremony we hurry to finish, but something alive that passes from generation to generation.

And in the hour of joy let me remember those for whom the festival is hard: those whose table is empty, those for whom the cleaning and shopping are beyond their strength.

And let everyone who is still enslaved, in body or in soul, go out to freedom. And let me be part of that, and not only celebrate my own freedom.

And let this festival leave a little more freedom in me, and let me remember that every day it is possible to go out one more step from a narrow place into open space.