8. The daily Yetzias Mitzrayim-Exodus from Egypt:[1]

The exodus from Egypt plays a major role in our spiritual duties and commandments today. We are commanded to remember the Exodus daily and perform many Mitzvos in memory of the Exodus. The reason for this is not just in order to remember G-d’s kindness, but mainly to serve as a message that in truth the Exodus has not yet come to a closure, and in fact we are obligated to daily perform our own spiritual exodus and escape the concealments and setbacks caused by our animal soul. This is directly noted in the saying of the Sages that, “In every generation one must view himself as if he left Egypt”, as in truth each day we must re-experience the Exodus. How is this accomplished? Through the Divine service of prayer, in which one contemplates G-dly matters and arouses within his heart a passionate fire of attachment to G-d. In truth, a Jew is able to reach a state of love and passion for G-d that is fierier than any relationship imaginable, including the relationship between a man and woman. [In the Rambam’s words [Teshuvah 1/3]: “What is the befitting love of G-d? That one love G-d with a great and powerful exploding love, to the point that his mind is not free for any other matter. He is constantly involved in his feeling of love for G-d, similar to a man that is infatuated with the love of a certain woman, and he constantly thinks of her wherever he goes and throughout whatever he is doing. When he eats, she is on his mind and heart, when he sleeps, she is on his mind and heart. All the more so is one able to reach an infatuation for the attachment to Hashem, as it says in the verse, “Bechol levavcha/With all your heart.” On this love, King Shlomo stated, “I am sickly in love”, and as an expression of this infatuation he authored the song of Shir Hashirim.”] This feeling lays dormant within the Jew throughout the day and can only be aroused through deep concentration and vivid contemplation on G-d’s greatness, which brings him to this state of ecstatic feelings of love. This is experienced during prayer, upon reciting the words in the Shema prayer of Bechol Levavcha Ubechol Nafshicha. This is called Yetzias Mitzrayim, as one leaves the constraints and concealments that the animal soul causes to those feelings, and now fully expresses them, breaking through all the barriers and obstructions.

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[1] Likkutei Torah p. 35“Usifartem Lachem.…”