Who won Pesach?

As I sit down to write a few days after Pesach there is so much uncertainty. My daughter’s gan decided that they would open. Then hours later they decided not to. The ceasefire is officially still in place, and the negotiations failed. The airport is open and the airlines aren’t sure if they are flying.

Limbo.

You know that moment right after pesach? Some of the people are plotzing to get their hands and mouths on some chometz, you just want to get the pesach keilim safely put away and get the laundry machine rolling on the road of the long journey ahead…

Then you peel back the covering on the kitchen counters - and there’s that slightly musty, stanky smell underneath. Water, potato peel juice, something that’s been sitting there all week.

And you peel it all away. And crumple it up.

And throw it in the trash.

And there’s this strange feeling of… where does it all go?

All that effort.

All that buildup.

All that intensity.

Especially this year.

When the war broke out as we read parshas zachor it felt so aligned.

As we approached Shabbos Hagadol, everyone was talking about how this year it comes out the same days of the week as it did when we came out of Egypt.

Approaching Pesach itself we were SO ready for redemption! People were making plans and telling me that they might cancel if they needed to get their shepsaleh and families to the beis hamidash. 

Then on shvii shel Pesach. Trump's deadline loomed larger than life - at the same time that the AriZal says that the sea would split. We prayed, said Tehillim, and hoped. 

And then Pesach ended.

Just like that. Clean up. Chometz. Here we go. 

Just like that.

At the end of Pesach, there’s a chassidish custom to make one last meal with the matzah and tell the story of the Baal Shem Tov trying to travel to Eretz Yisrael.

And the strange thing about telling that story is… they don’t actually get there.

The story is full of meaning and miracles and deep moments - but it doesn’t end with arrival.

I always wondered why we tell the story just then. This year it made perfect sense to me. It’s about a journey with no arrival. Like Pesach. Like our lives right now.

For one version of the story, see here:

https://breslovcenter.blogspot.com/2012/04/baal-shem-tovs-nesia-to-eretz-yisrael.html

Pesach, on the surface, is about redemption.

Clear redemption. Miraculous redemption. We left Egypt. We became free.

But if you listen more closely, Pesach is full of tension.

At the Seder we say: “We were slaves, and now we are free.”

And in the next breath: “This year we are here. Next year in Jerusalem.”

So which one is it?

Are we free? Or not yet?

The whole night is full of conflicts.

We sit like royalty, leaning at the table, acting out freedom. And we eat לחם עוני - poor man’s bread.

We celebrate in our yom tov finery, spending thousands on holiday foods - and then we eat מרור, bitterness. While celebrating freedom.

We say: “In every generation, a person must see themselves as if they left Egypt.”

As if.

Not fully. Not completely. But something real enough to feel.

We say: “Not only our ancestors were redeemed, but us as well.”

And at the same time, we are still very much in a world that is unfinished.

The Haggadah doesn’t resolve this.

It makes space for our embodied experience within its tension.

And if that weren’t enough, here comes…

Dayenu.

If Hashem had taken us out of Egypt… Dayenu.If He had brought us to Har Sinai, but not given us the Torah… Dayenu.

That’s always a strange one.

How is that enough? To get to Sinai and not receive the Torah?

What are we celebrating?

This year, that question felt very real.

There was a sense before Pesach - maybe this is it. Maybe something bigger is about to shift.

And then Pesach ends.

And we go back to laundry. To routine. To a world that is still unfinished.

And also - to the reality here in Israel that is deeply uncertain.

There’s a ceasefire, but it doesn’t really feel like peace. We know the threats are still there.

And at the same time, we’re trying to return to normal life. 

Holding both of those at once is not simple.

So I’ve been thinking about redemption differently.

What if it’s not only an all-or-nothing event?

What if it also happens in moments?

Moments where something actually shifts. Moments of connection. Moments of clarity that land.

In Breslov language, that’s דעת.

It’s when something we’ve learned becomes alive and integrated inside of us.

When it’s not just in our heads anymore.

It lands in the body. In how we move. In how we react. In how we relate.

It becomes part of us. It becomes a new line of code in our “internal operating system.”

And Pesach is built around that kind of knowing.

We don’t just talk about leaving Egypt.

We act it out.

We sit. We lean. We eat the matzah. We taste the bitterness.

We tell the story with our children - with voices, with movement, with puppets and props -with whatever it takes.

It’s not abstract.

It’s embodied.

The Rambam writes in Hilchos Melachim that the main difference between the world now and the world in the time of Mashiach is not dramatic miracles, but that the world will be filled with the knowledge of Hashem like water fills the sea.

A world filled with דעת.

Let that land. It means that these moments of דעת matter more than we think.

Each moment of authentic connection. Each moment that becomes real. Each small shift.

They don’t disappear - swallowed by the washing machine like all of the missing socks.

They accumulate. With interest. Eventually, they will snowball.

Amen.

Dayenu starts to sound different.

Getting to Sinai, even without receiving the Torah, still matters.

Because something in us has already changed.

The encounter itself has value.

And the Baal Shem Tov’s journey looks different too.

Not like a failed attempt.

But like a journey full of real moments that didn’t end in arrival.

And still mattered.

There’s a teaching often said in the name of Nachman of Breslov - that Pesach doesn’t just pass.

It enters.

Something from it goes into us, and stays.

We’re not the same people walking out of Pesach that we were walking into it.

Something has entered.

So here we are.

Not everything is resolved. We don’t know what’s ahead.

But nothing we took in is lost.

All of it, the effort, the moments, the small shifts- it stays.

It accumulates.

That’s the emunah we’re taking with us.

Not just faith that something big will happen one day.

But trust in the significance of what is already happening.

That every moment that became real inside of us is part of something that is building.

And at some point, it will tip.

So maybe the question isn’t only:

Did redemption happen?

Maybe the question is:

How much redemption happened?

How many contractions of חבלי משיח did we breathe through?

A colleague wrote to me after reading an earlier version of this:

“This reframes each contraction as meaningful — like Dayenu — each one bringing us closer to birth. But at a certain point… the baby either arrives or doesn’t. And we’re still not holding the baby. So how do we hold all that buildup?”

And I felt that question in my body.

Because there is a moment in birth - anyone who’s been there knows it - where a woman hits a kind of absolute breaking point.

She’s shaking. Sometimes throwing up. She’s convinced she cannot do this anymore. She might feel like she’s going to die, or kill someone, or that something has gone terribly wrong.

And that moment has a name.

Transition.

It’s the moment right before the baby is born.

With one of my births, I remember actually wondering if there was even a baby. Or if the weight gain and indigestion were just… the result of too much ice cream.

It sounds absurd now. But in that moment, it felt real.

And then the baby came.

In the span of thousands of years of Jewish history… it feels possible that we are there.

In transition.

The pressure is enormous. The not-knowing is intense. The gap between everything we’ve invested… and what we’re holding in our arms… feels almost unbearable.

But if this is transition -

then we are closer than we think.

We just have to hold on.

So now, after Pesach... We may not fully be holding the baby in our arms yet.

Maybe the confusion comes from expecting redemption to arrive as a single, finished moment - when Pesach is actually teaching us to recognize that we are already בתוך תהליך של גאולה. Within an unfolding process of redemption.

And it may not come all at once.

But we’re not in the same place we were before.

We can ask...

What entered?

What stayed?

What is becoming an update to my internal operating system?

And how can each of us know that we are getting closer to the ultimate Tipping Point?

But don’t just take my word for it. Reb Nosson brings the Zohar who says it loud and clear.

וְזֶה בְּחִינַת ד' מִינִים שֶׁנּוֹטְלִין בַּיָּדַיִם, וְאִיתָא בַּזֹּהַר הַקָּדוֹשׁ (תִּקּוּנֵי זֹהַר דַּף כט) מַאן נָצַח? מַאן דְּאָחִיד מָאָנָא קְרָבָא בִּידוֹהִי. וְלִכְאוֹרָה אֵינוֹ מוּבָן כְּלַל מַה זֹּאת הַשְּׁאֵלָה מַאן נָצַח, הֲלֹא בְּכָל הַמִּלְחָמוֹת רוֹאִין מַאן נָצַח, מִי שֶׁכָּבַשׁ הַמִּלְחָמָה וְהִכְנִיעַ וְהִפִּיל וְהָרַג אֶת שׂוֹנְאוֹ שֶׁנִּלְחַם עִמּוֹ, וְאֵיךְ שַׁיָּךְ לִשְׁאֹל מַאן נָצַח? וְגַם הַתְּשׁוּבָה מַאן דְּנָקִיט מָאנָא קְרָבָא בִּידוֹהִי, הֲלֹא אַדְרַבָּא בְּכָל הַמִּלְחָמוֹת זֶה סִימָן שֶׁלֹּא נִצַּח עֲדַיִן הַמִּלְחָמָה, מֵאַחַר שֶׁצָּרִיךְ לֶאֱחֹז עוֹד הַכְּלֵי מִלְחָמָה בְּיָדָיו, כִּי מִי שֶׁמְּנַצֵּחַ הַמִּלְחָמָה לְגַמְרֵי אֵינוֹ אוֹחֵז עוֹד כְּלֵי הַמִּלְחָמָה בְּיָדָיו. אַךְ אֶפְשָׁר לְהָבִין עַל-פִּי הַנַּ"ל, כִּי כְּבָר מְבֹאָר שֶׁבְּחִינַת מִלְחֶמֶת עֲמָלֵק הוּא מִלְחָמָה אֲרֻכָּה מְאֹד מְאֹד,

In translation:

“And this is the aspect of the Four Species that we take in our hands. And it is brought in the holy Zohar (Tikkunei Zohar, page 29): ‘Who is victorious? The one who holds the כלי קרב (weapons of battle) in his hands.’

And at first glance, this is not understood at all. What kind of question is this - ‘Who is victorious?’ In all wars, we can see who won: the one who conquered the battle, who subdued, defeated, and killed his enemy who fought against him. So how does it make sense to ask, ‘Who is victorious?’

And also, the answer itself - that the one who holds the weapons of battle in his hands - is the victor - this seems the opposite of what we would expect. In all wars, this is actually a sign that the war has not yet been won, since he still needs to hold onto his weapons.

Because one who has completely won no longer needs to hold weapons of war in his hands.

However, it can be understood based on what we explained earlier: that the aspect of the מלחמת עמלק (the war with Amalek) is a very, very long war.”

(For the full section in Likutei Halachot: https://www.sefaria.org/Likutei_Halakhot%2C_Orach_Chaim%2C_Laws_of_the_Sabbath.7.54.1?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en)

And this is Reb Nosson’s answer.

This isn’t a war that ends cleanly. The war with Amalek - with ספק, with doubts and disconnection - is long, ongoing, and returns in different forms throughout life.

So victory isn’t defined by finishing the battle.

Victory is holding on to the mitzvos - our weapons.

Holding on to the matzah crumbs, the potato peels, the guests and spilled wine. With that we win the war. Believing in ourselves, our mitzvos, our progress. The little points in the bigger game of connect-the-dots.

Stay engaged. Continuing to turn toward connection, even after falling, even without clarity.

Because in this kind of war, the moment a person gives up - that’s the real loss.

But as long as a person is still holding on, still trying, still in the process -

that itself is already called ניצחון.

👉

I’d love to hear your thoughts - you’re welcome to share them in the comments below.

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