It is no accident that the Jewish holiday or Passover and the Christian holiday of Easter are celebrated at relatively the same time of the year. There is a very strong connection between both these holidays. They are both festivals of freedom and liberation.

Passover is about the exodus of the Jews from Egypt – from the bondage of Egypt. The fledgling Jewish nation were slaves in Egypt and Passover (read Exodus) is the celebration of their liberation. The Seder feast is a re-enactment of the story. Many people see the Seder meal as a celebration of the past. And, indeed, this is so on the surface. But on a deeper level, the Seder meal is about NOW. Every person (in a mortal body) is in bondage to something – it can be a job or a marriage or some addiction – and the Seder shows how this bondage is broken. One has to read between the lines.

Easter, which is about the resurrection of Jesus – one of the great events in history – is also about freedom. But this freedom is about the liberation from the bondage of mortality – from the bondage of the “fear of death”. If we analyze carefully we will see that this bondage is the primal one. It is the source of all the other forms of bondage that people experience. It is the bondage that is behind the bondage of Egypt. The resurrection breaks this bondage. One can live one’s highest ideal without the fear of death. What a different world this would be if everyone experienced this liberation!

Many people see Easter (as with Passover) as the celebration of an event from the past. But here too, it is about the NOW. It is about resurrection in the NOW – today. Everyone has things in need of resurrection. It can be a business, a financial situation, an organ of the body or faculty of the mind, or perhaps a relationship that seems to have died. Easter shows the way.

Passover celebrates the breaking of the bondage of slavery. But Easter celebrates the liberation of a deeper bondage.