Pesach - True Freedom

It was the year 1942 and the ghetto of Krakow was completely judenrien. The Great city of Krakow - the epicenter of Judaism in Poland for over five hundred years, was now devoid of Jews, all systematically uprooted by the Nazi beasts. In the middle of this desolation two brothers were hiding, running from bunker to bunker, trying to stay alive amidst all the insanity. The Holiday of Passover was fast approaching and those two brothers had something of great significance on their mind. They had to find a way to eat matzah on the first night of Passover. It took a lot of inventiveness and sacrifice - getting caught meant getting shot - but they built themselves a makeshift oven and found some flour. They were able to bake a small amount of Matzah for themselves. The night of Passover came and they sat down to their makeshift seder - celebrating the Jewish exodus from Egypt. In years past they had sat at a beautiful set table with the finest silver and surrounded by family. Tonight they sat down in a dark attic, all alone in the world, running from the Nazis, their very lives in danger, with a bit of Matzah that they sacrificed their lives for. The younger brother- a 21 year old - calls to his older brother; "There is no way I can have a seder tonight. The seder is to celebrate our freedom, our going out of exile- yet here we sit, our lives in danger, the tragedy unspeakable- our family is all gone, the entire city is up in flames and the Nazis won't be happy until every Jew is dead. Isn't this worse then the lives the Jews had in Egypt? Back then their lives weren't in danger as it is in our time- what kind of freedom are we celebrating tonight?" The older brother answered; "Every night in the evening prayers we praise Hashem for taking us out of Egypt to an 'everlasting freedom'. The everlasting freedom that we gained and are thankful for isn't a physical freedom - that is only a byproduct of what we got that night. Rather it's the spiritual freedom that we recognize. Passover celebrates the birth of a nation, when we went from being Egyptian slaves to becoming a newly born Jewish nation - a nation that G-d could call his own. When we sit down at the seder we celebrate something bigger then life, a going out of slavery into the embracing hands of our father in heaven- becoming 'A G-dley nation'. This is something that no one can ever take away from us - no matter how much they beat, torture and even kill us, we will always remain standing, free to serve G-d. G-d will always have his nation roaming the earth". With those words two brothers- my grandfather and his older brother- sat down to a Seder that only consisted of dangoursly earned matzah and a little bit of borscht which they used as a substitution for wine. Yet this was most probably the most magnificent seder ever experienced.