The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising began on the first night of Pesach, 5703/1943. The Aish Kodesh was present and presumably involved in some capacity, but no record of his teachings has survived to reach us. Around 1930, he wrote a number of insights into the text of the Haggadah. In the Haggadah we read that in every generation a person must see himself as if he went out of Mitzrayim. The Aish Kodesh connects this Mitzvah with the experience of Adam HaRishon after he violated the Mitzvah of Hashem, when Adam realized the enormity of what he had done he hid from Hashem and Hashem said to him “Ayeka? Where are you?”
Certainly, Hashem knew where Adam was all along, so this was actually a reprimand of Adam and a warning to him about what he had become and what he was becoming. The essence of what Adam was, what he should have been, had abandoned his body and Adam was no longer conscious of the godliness that had inhered in him when in Gan Eden. Adam had become an empty shell of himself and was turning into an animal. Adam answered, (Bereishis 3:10) “I heard your voice in the garden, and I was terrified because I am naked so I hid.” The Aish Kodesh says, contrary to the simple understanding of this text, this was exactly the correct answer and it signified the beginning of Adam’s return to the proper service of Hashem in this world. “The beginning of wisdom is terror before Hashem.” (Tehillim 111:10)
The Hebrew word for nakedness in this Pasuk, also used to describe the serpent, means wisdom as well. Adam was saying, “here I am Hashem - I am wise because I fear you but I hid because I am without merit - without Mitzvos.” When Bnei Yisrael went out of Mitzrayim we were like Adam after he was banished from the Garden. We had our terror before Hashem, we had the wisdom of the Avos but we had no Mitzvos and we had no experience of the presence of Hashem in our lives or in our souls. The true servant of Hashem wants to be filled with the joy/excitement of doing Hashem’s Will. Instead of being a denizen of this earth, hiding like an animal, running about without purpose - he becomes a vector for meaning in the world so that the world lives in him.
This is the second meaning of the Hebrew word for generation in the Haggadah, dor, also deriving from the root meaning to reside in. The Aish Kodesh teaches that in every generation, every Jew should be filled with inspiration and the conscious sense of godliness in himself - so that the world lives in his consciousness. In this way, each generation has the potential to be like the generation that went out of Mitzrayim. We will see miracles and experience the might of Hashem as He liberates us from our afflictions and lays low those who torment us. Every person that was present for the splitting of the Yam Suf, even the lowliest maidservant, saw more wondrous sights than Yechezkel HaNavi. So it will be that if we can become dwelling places for the world, Hashem will redeem us from the Final Galus (exile)!
