The story is the same each year, yet somehow—with a renewed spirit—we continue to show up, again and again, to remember it. On Passover, we gather to retell one of the most powerful liberation stories in human history.

The story doesn’t change. It’s the journey of a people once enslaved, breaking free against all odds to step into their promised future. It’s a story of courage, resilience, divine timing—and above all, a story of hope. It is the story of us.

What does change, year after year, is ourselves—the storytellers and the spectators. We change. Our lens shifts. Our struggles deepen. Our triumphs grow. Our traumas take new shape.

And so this year, I invite you to come to the table with a heightened consciousness. A new perspective. I ask you to reflect on freedom and consider a question I can’t stop thinking about:

How many of us have ever truly experienced freedom?
And how many of us still live in invisible forms of bondage?

After years working in the mental health space—especially within the Jewish community—what I’ve come to see is this: many of us are still trapped. Not, like our 59 kidnapped brothers and sisters, by physical captors—for whom this is not metaphor, but reality—but by mindsets, by trauma, by grief, and by the quiet struggles that often go unseen.

Mental health is our modern-day exodus.
It is the journey of freeing ourselves from the stories that no longer serve us, the beliefs that keep us small, and the emotional burdens we’ve been taught to carry alone.

That’s why I founded Mental Health IsReal: to offer support, healing, and hope to a community that is often high-achieving, high-functioning—and silently hurting.

Since October 7th, the emotional needs in Jewish communities around the world have intensified. And yet, in the face of collective grief, we’ve seen something equally powerful: people stepping up, reaching out, and reclaiming their right to emotional well-being.

This is what liberation looks like. Not the absence of pain, but the courage to face it. The willingness to heal. The refusal to go through it alone. The impetus to show up, not just for ourselves, but for the resilience of us all.

And just like at our seders—where we sit and ask the Four Questions—at MHI, we don’t pretend to have all the answers. Because often, it’s not in the answers that we find comfort—but in the search.

We believe the most real and lasting liberation we can achieve is the kind that happens within. We don’t always get to choose the circumstances life throws at us—but we can choose to seek healing. We can choose to walk through pain, rather than be defined by it.

So this Passover, I invite you to reflect:

What mental shackles are you ready to release?

What new narrative are you ready to write?

And who in your life may need help stepping out of their own narrow place?

As part of our mission this season, we’re launching The Healing Blanket—a global art initiative in collaboration with artist Tomer Peretz on May 8th at The Museum of Tolerance. Through it, individuals and organizations across the world are invited to design a square that represents their story. These pieces will be woven together into one collective blanket—a powerful symbol of shared healing and global unity.

Because healing doesn’t happen in isolation.
It happens in community.

And this Passover, our freedom story is still being written. Let us write it together.