(א) בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ מֶֽלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם אֲשֶׁר קִדְּ֒שָֽׁנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתָיו וְצִוָּנוּ לַעֲסֹק בְּדִבְרֵי תוֹרָה:
(1) Blessed are You, Adonoy our God, Ruler of the Universe, Who sanctified us with commandments and commanded us to be engrossed in the words of Torah.
(14) This day shall be to you one of remembrance: you shall celebrate it as a festival to Hashem throughout the ages; you shall celebrate it as an institution for all time. (15) Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread; on the very first day you shall remove leaven from your houses, for whoever eats leavened bread from the first day to the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. (16) You shall celebrate a sacred occasion on the first day, and a sacred occasion on the seventh day; no work at all shall be done on them; only what every person is to eat, that alone may be prepared for you. (17) You shall observe the [Feast of] Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your ranks out of the land of Egypt; you shall observe this day throughout the ages as an institution for all time.
(3) And Moses said to the people,
“Remember this day, on which you went free from Egypt, the house of bondage, how Hashem freed you from it with a mighty hand: no leavened bread shall be eaten. (4) You go free on this day, in the month of Abib. (5) So, when Hashem has brought you into the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, which He swore to your fathers to give you, a land flowing with milk and honey, you shall observe in this month the following practice: (6) “Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a festival of Hashem. (7) Throughout the seven days unleavened bread shall be eaten; no leavened bread shall be found with you, and no leaven shall be found in all your territory. (8) And you shall explain to your child on that day, ‘It is because of what Hashem did for me when I went free from Egypt.’
לכם לזכרון, “for you as a remembrance.” Prior to this verse the Torah dealt with Passover that the Israelites sacrificed and ate while in Egypt. From here on we have the legislation dealing with how to commemorate this event annually for all future generations. Whereas in Egypt, this ritual was a condition in order to bring about the redemption, from now on it would serve as a reminder of who it was who gave us freedom, not Pharaoh, neither did we gain freedom by our own efforts, but our freedom is due exclusively to the direct intervention of G-d personally in our fate.לדורותיכם חקת עולם, “for your generations as an everlasting statute.”
והיה בי יביאך ה׳ אל ארע הכנעני, "It will be when G'd brings you to the land of the Canaanite, etc." The reason that this particular commandment is conditional on arrival in the Holy Land in order that the story of the Exodus should not be forgotten once the Israelites had lived in the Holy Land for many generations.
R' Meir Simhah of Dvinsk, "Torah Gems" compiled by Aharon Yaakov Greenberg (book)
One who regards the exodus from Egypt as nothing more than an exodus from slavery to freedom will ask: why should we celebrate this event in our times? One who understands that it was a spiritual exodus, from impurity to holiness, will celebrate the festival in exile as well.
Nahum M. Sarna, "The JPS Torah Commentary: Exodus" (book)
The Hebrew stem z-k-r connotes much more than the recall of things past. It means, rather, to be mindful, to pay heed, signifying a sharp focusing of attention upon someone or something. It embraces concern and involvement and is active, not passive, so that it eventuates in action. As Menahot 43b has it: "Looking upon leads to remembering, and remembering leads to action."
Nahum Sarna, "The JPS Torah Commentary: Exodus" (book)
In this section the events of the Exodus become an experience indelibly stamped for all time on Israel's memory and imagination, permanently shaping its religious consciousness and practice. Verse 14 establishes an annual commemorative festival; the succeeding verses explain how it is to be observed. The focus is on the festival of matsot, unleavened bread. Without a doubt, throughout the biblical period this remained a distinct celebration separate from the one-day paschal rite. [...] The paschal sacrifice is characteristically rooted in the life of the pastoral nomad who follows a lunar calendar; the matsah is grounded in the life of the soil and the farmer, which is governed by a solar calendar. Since the two festivals occurred in close propinquity to each other, and both coincided with the time of the Exodus, all three elements merged and were fused into a united entity. The pre-Israelite ingredients were stripped of their former content and were invested with completely new associations and meaning connected with the events of the Exodus.
Rabbi Jan Uhrbach, "Memory and the Exodus from Egypt", https://www.jtsa.edu/torah/memory-and-the-exodus-from-egypt/
Evoking that memory daily does far more than strengthen our identity as Jews. It reminds us to greet the day with gratitude and hope. It prepares our hearts and minds to empathize with the vulnerable, to value equality, freedom, and justice, and to experience pain and anger when those values are violated. It primes our consciousness to see opportunities for action and change in the world around us and within ourselves, rather than seeing inevitability and impossibility.
[I]t is all too easy to accept as inevitable whatever worldview the Pharaohs of our world are currently peddling—it requires only forgetting. But insisting on our own values, persisting in our vision of what the world could and should be, demands courage, imagination, and a good memory.
Zakhor. Remember.