"G-d said to Moses and Aaron... They shall eat the flesh on that night, roasted on the fire, with matzos and bitter herbs. Do not eat of it roasted in a pot, or cooked, or boiled in water; only roasted on the fire."
The difference between cooking and roasting is that while in cooking (or boiling or sautéing) the food is prepared via a combination of both fire (or heat) and water (or other liquids), roasting only employs fire as the means to prepare the food.
Fire shatters and decomposes every item it comes in contact with. Water possesses the quality of connecting items.
In the works of Jewish mysticism, Kabbalah and Chassidus, where every physical phenomenon mirrors spiritual energy, fire represents upward striving, yearning, thirst, passion, tension, and restlessness. Water, on the other hand, symbolizes satiation, containment, tranquility, fulfillment, calmness, and resolution. Fire decomposes, breaks, and divides; you place an object in fire and it's challenged to its core, literally. Water connects and unites, and helps the nutrients you eat to be absorbed and integrated by your body, representing integration.
Fire represents the part in us that challenges the status quo, seeking to shatter convention; water embodies our ability to make peace with life, to come to terms with reality; to embrace what is.
On the Essence of Freedom
Human life must synthesize “fire” and “water.” If we only develop our fire dimension, the resulting tension can be harmful. People who are never satisfied, tend to make themselves and the people around them miserable. On the other hand, if we are only water-like creatures, we can become paralyzed and immobile, smug and narrow. A healthy and productive life is one in which one learns how to balance and even integrate the “fire” and “water” elements within the human personality.
But how? How can we operate on both levels of consciousness? Either we yearn for a journey of ceaseless ambition and fervor, or for an existence of tranquility and gratification? Either we are ambitious to no end, or we just surrender to the status quo?
Which quality within us is more liberating, is it the water or the fire? One would imagine that freedom means achieving that state in which the psyche is cleansed from the tension and longing that only serves to turn life into a battlefield of ideas and emotions. "Show me the heart unfettered by foolish dreams and I will show you a happy man."
The Torah tells us that on the very night when the Jews embraced the miracle of liberty, they simultaneously learned that the Passover freedom offering could not be prepared with even one drop of water, only through direct contact with fire. Why?
Freedom is the ability to be truly and fully human. And to be human is to be moved by the call of the infinite, by endless mystery, by boundless vision. Created in the image of the Divine, the infinite essence of reality, a person's horizons are forever extending. The infamous lack of human satiation is not reflective of man's lowly nature; on the contrary, it is reflective of human greatness. A human being always senses that there is much more to life, to reality, to truth, and he/she yearns for it.
To live a free life, free to express your full humaneness and Godliness, means never to dull your fire or stifle your horizons; not to allow even a drop of water to slake your thirst and silence your quest; not even to allow a "pot" to contain and limit your inner fervor and passion to touch truth.
Rabbi YY Jacobson
