Faster Than Time

(From a shiur by Rabbi Akiva Tatz)

Our Rabbis tell us that the Jews in Egypt were on the 49th level of impurity and had they stayed in Egypt a moment longer they would have sunk down to the 50th level and would never have been able to be redeemed.

How could it be that in one second the Jews would have fallen to the lowest spiritual depths? One moment seems like a very short amount of time for that to happen...

The danger to leaving Egypt wasn't that we would sink to the lowest level in a moment, but that if Hashem waited any longer we would have lost our momentum and our alacrity to push ourselves from the depths to the higher levels.

We could think about this a little further: What's the difference between matza and chametz? Time! The ingredients are basically the same, but the time it takes to make it makes all the difference in the world. If we delay one more second than the matza will turn to chametz.
Our Rabbis say: "Mitzvah haba'a leyad'cha, al tachmitzena (from the root of chametz)" - " When a mitzvah comes to your hand, do let it become sour." We learn from here that when we have the opportunity to do a mitzvah, to do something great, we should grab at that opportunity right away! If we wait we will lose our excitement and we could lose that opportunity.

That's why it was so important for the Jews to leave Egypt very quickly. The Jews were on an intense spiritual high, and if they didn't leave at that moment they would have lost their inspiration and wouldn't have been able to leave Egypt.

We can apply this to our own lives: When we feel inspired or when we have the opportunity to do a mitzvah, we should grab hold of that inspiration right away and do something great with it!

Have a chag kasher v'sameach!!