In the late fourth millennium BCE, in the city of Uruk in Mesopotamia, the first wheeled carts appeared as the result of a surprisingly non-obvious breakthrough. People already understood rotation from tools like the potter’s wheel but translating that idea into forward motion required a new and unintuitive insight. A rolling vehicle depends not just on a round object, but on a precise relationship between wheel and axle. If both are fixed together, friction makes movement nearly impossible. Only when the axle is held steady and the wheels rotate independently does smooth motion become achievable. Reaching this solution demanded careful experimentation and a level of woodworking precision that earlier societies simply did not possess.

The carts that emerged from this insight were heavy and slow, with solid wooden wheels, yet their impact was profound. For the first time, large loads could be moved efficiently over land, transforming agriculture, construction, trade and humanity itself. This seemingly simple mechanism enabled the growth of cities, expanded economic networks, and reshaped how goods and resources were distributed. What began in places like Uruk was not just a new tool, but a foundational technology that would influence transport, warfare, and industry for thousands of years.

If the wheel that first turned in places like Uruk helped set civilization in motion by enabling the movement of goods, power, and economic life, the Exodus of the nascent Jewish people from Egypt marked a different kind of turning point, one that reshaped the moral and spiritual trajectory of human society. The wheel made it possible to build and sustain complex systems and is the very foundation of transportation as we know it, while the Exodus introduced a foundational narrative of freedom, law, and collective identity. Together, they reflect two inflection points of civilization’s development: the technical capacity to move and organize the world, and the ethical vision that defines why and to what end that world should be shaped.

On Passover (this year starting the night of April 1) we celebrate the Exodus of the Jewish people from the slavery of Egypt 3,338 years ago. Passover is a holiday that last eight days (seven in Israel) with a variety of laws and practices.

The prime prohibition of Passover is to avoid the consumption of any leavened product.

The highlight of Passover is the Seder, the festive meal that is conducted on the first night (and second night outside of Israel) of Passover.

The Seder is not merely a celebration or commemoration. Rather, it’s meant to be a sort of recreation of the actual Exodus. We eat the same food that was eaten 3,338 years ago. We eat the Matza, the unleavened bread, the dry, simple cracker made of only flour and water, baked under very strict supervision and time limits. We eat the Marror, the “bitter herbs.” We say the words that were uttered by our ancestors in Egypt.

There is an obligation for every Seder participant to see themselves as if they personally were freed from Egypt. And we all have our personal Egypt. The word in Hebrew for Egypt is Mitzrayim, whose etymological root means “constrained.” We each have something that constrains us, internally and externally, personally and communally. Passover is a time to look beyond the constraints, to imagine a reality where we are free from the negative things that hold us back.

The text that is the blueprint for breaking free is the Haggadah, which we read during the Seder. But it isn’t just reading the liturgy, ideally, it is an immersion in a story of national and personal freedom. When we eat the Matza and drink the prescribed four cups of wine (or grape juice) we lean on our left side, like kings of old. We read the narrative as if we are there, on the shores of the Nile, heading east, after the miraculous ten plagues and the destruction of the mightiest empire on Earth.

We experience the splitting of the sea, where we escape the physical and psychological boundaries of slavery and witness the drowning of the entire armed forces of Egypt. We recall both our humble and downtrodden beginnings and the meteoric rise of the people that would encounter God at Mount Sinai.

We focus on our children and grandchildren, on the next generations, on the eternal continuity of the Jewish people, the secret power of the incredible, odds-defying, history-defining journey. It is a night of questions, of discussion, of discovery, of insight. It is a night of family. Of all the holidays in the Jewish calendar, this is the one that has the most direct, intrinsic and powerful focus on the eternal and binding strength of family.

And it is a night of thanksgiving and celebration. We recall how every generation, every single generation of the long story of Jewish history, people and nations have tried to destroy us. Mighty empires, powerful kings, bloodthirsty mobs. They all tried to extinguish the Jewish story. They all failed. It was not without pain, suffering and tragic loss, but they never, ever can extinguish our people.

This issue is particularly poignant this Passover. We have the Iranian regime shooting ballistic missiles at Israel as I write this, we have an unprecedented wave of antisemitic attacks occurring throughout the world. Nonetheless, we will persevere. We will outlive this attempt to destroy us. We will be free of these “constraints” to our freedom.

May this Passover be one where we witness even more miracles and may the blessing at the end of the Seder, at the end of the Haggadah be fulfilled: Next year in rebuilt Jerusalem!