What We All Want

i want you to want me
i need you to need me
i'd love you to love me
i'm beggin' you to beg me

We all need it. We all want it. Everyone at some level, in some way needs to be needed. His existence needs to be validated. We all want to know that we mean something to somebody. Its very nice that I a go to work, school etc. But does anybody Need me? Will anyone care if i drop dead tomorrow? 

We often evaluate our relationships. Some are easier than others. Some require more effort. The ones that need you to go the extra mile to make it work often make us stop and think, is it worth it? Do i need this person? Would this person care if I never answered another phone call. If i never called again? Does he need me? 

Aish has an article now about releasing yourself from abusive relationships. After all the theme of Pesach is freedom. Salvation. Exodus. Freedom from galut, from our Yetzer Hara, from ourselves perhaps. 

Yes, we need others to validate us. But to what extent? How much of our self worth is dependent on others. No matter how much we profess that we do not care what they say or think. There is always the select about who's opinion you do care. It does matter to you what they think. As it should be. You should always have those that you feel responsible to. We should all have people that inspire us to be better. People who motivate us. Yes, we should have them in our lives. 

But to what extent do we need to be needed? To what extent is our feeling of self tied with others? At what point does our need to be needed become crippling? What happens if the person who used to need you does not anymore? Or maybe just not as much as before? What if he has moved on and no longer needs you the way he once did. This can be very hurtful. The person is not intentionally inflicting pain on his friend, he has just moved on. Things are not the same. His situation has changed,he changed. This happens a lot when friends get engaged. They just don't need you in the same way they did before The smart ones realize that they still need friends just not in the capacity or to the extent that they needed you before prince charming came along. This can be very hard to get used to. 

Pesach is the time of freedom. The time to remove all shackles that bind us down. It is the time to release ourselves from whatever is keeping us from growing.  We cannot grow if our happiness is dependent on others. We cannot grow if we expect others to maintain our self esteem and worthiness. We have to take a stand to be independent and self-believing. We have to free ourselves from the ropes that we ourselves have tied. Those are often the hardest to remove, for we do not even realize that we have shackled ourselves. 

May this Pesach bring with it true freedom. May we be released from all bonds that hold us down. May we eradicate anything within us or around us that keeps us from soaring. May we all find the "chometz" in our lives easily and destroy it as easily and completely as we burn the bread erev pesach. 

May any inspiration from this post be in Zchut of R'Avigdor Asher ben Gohar