According to Rabbi Judah (cited in the Talmud, Bava Metzia 106b), Tevet 29 marks the end of winter. (As per Genesis 8:22, the year consists of six 2-month "seasons": seedtime, harvest, cold, heat, summer and winter.)
Rabbi Yitzchak Kaduri, known in recent years as "the eldest of the Kabbalists," in the Holy Land, was born in Baghdad, Iraq in 1898. As a youth, he studied under the great "Ben Ish Chai" (Rabbi Yosef Chaim of Baghdad, 1840-1913) and was regarded as an illu (prodigy) by the sages of the venerable Baghdad Jewish community. In 1922, Rabbi Yitzchak emigrated to the Holy Land and joined the ranks of the Jerusalem Kabbalists, even as he earned his living for many years as a bookbinder. Over the years his fame grew, and thousands flocked to him to receive his counsel and blessing.
Rabbi Kaduri passed away on the 29th of Tevet of 2006, age 108. Hundreds of thousands attended his funeral in Jerusalem.
In 1793, Tripoli (in what is now Libya) fell under the rule of the cruel Ali Burghul, who took advantage of divisions within the local leadership to take control of the city. Burghul terrorized the city’s inhabitants—especially the Jews—with excessive taxes and unjust executions. Among those executed was the son of R. Abraham Khalfon, the head of the Jewish community.
In 1795, a local Jew helped negotiate an agreement between the opposing factions, and on 29 Teves they succeeded in driving Burghul out of the city. The community celebrated this day each year as a day of rejoicing, and would recite a special hymn recounting the miracle (printed in Se’u Zimrah, pp. 191ff.).
The community of Tripoli kept a similar date of rejoicing one week earlier, on 23 Teves, commemorating the date (in 1705) when a siege that had been placed on the city by the ruler of Tunisia was lifted.
“…and if the Holy One, blessed be He, did not take us out of Egypt, we and our children and our children’s children would be slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt.” (The Haggadah)
The Exodus did not happen once. It reoccurs at every moment.
At every moment, you have a choice.
You can continue as just another speck of nature, trapped within its relentless current.
Or you can allow the One Above to pick you up from there and carry you close to Him, above and beyond all things.
Why must it repeat itself at every moment?
Because the natural world is recreated at every moment. And this miracle, this bond you have with the One Above, this has nothing to do with the natural world. It’s not in the program.
Indeed, if you are a Jew, by the natural order of things, you should still be a slave to Pharaoh in Egypt.
So that at every moment, the world is created again, including you within it. And, naturally, you find yourself sliding back into slavery, surrendering yourself to the meaningless drudge of Pharaoh’s work projects.
Only that, at the same moment, the One who created this world stretches out His hand to lift you out of there and beyond all things.
And all you need to do is say, “Yes.”
“Yes, I want to keep your mitzvahs. Yes, I will be one with You.”