As in the days when you left Egypt, I will show you wonders. Michah, 7:15
On the fifteenth of the Hebrew month of Nissan, Jews around the world will sit together with family and friends. They will sit at tables covered with white cloths, illuminated with candlelight, sparkling with silver, china and crystal. Throughout the night, they will taste the richness of wine, the bitterness of horseradish, and the subtle pure taste of matzah, the bread of faith.
On the seder night, we celebrate our liberation from slavery in Egypt, our redemption and freedom.
And yet, we are still waiting to be free.
When I was a small child, I lived in Chicago. We weren’t observant, but my grandparents were. And every Passover (Pesach), we would go to their apartment – my parents, my brothers and I, together with all my aunts, uncles and cousins, to celebrate the seder.
I remember my Uncle Artie and my Aunt Shiffy joking, the kids clowning around, my grandfather talking about the Exodus from Egypt and my grandmother saying: “Samuel, I’m hungry! Can you please hurry so we can eat?”
I never wanted my grandfather to hurry. I would have loved it if he had told the story of the Exodus all night long. Because from as far back as I can remember, at the seder – in the eating, the drinking and the telling of the story, I could feel the walls of the world shifting, opening and moving back. I could feel the presence of something else, something sparkling, something powerful, profoundly in motion, real and alive.
Many years have passed since my grandparents passed away. There were years – lots of years – when I didn’t go to any seder. There were years when I didn’t even know that Pesach had come and gone.
Then began my own journey back – back to my roots, to the roots of my grandparents and great-grandparents, to the roots of all the generations that came before. My journey brought me all the way back to the generation of the Exodus from Egypt, an Exodus which is still occurring today.
The slavery of Egypt was the most profound and all-encompassing that ever existed, as it was not only physical but spiritual as well. The redemption from Egypt took place in the midst of thunderous miracles, and through it, both bodies and souls become free.
But that freedom did not last. True, the Exodus was the prototype for every redemption that would ever follow. It was a world-altering event that led to the birth of the Jewish nation and the giving of the Torah, the Divine mandate for all of humanity. But it was incomplete.
G-d took us out of Egypt, but He did not take Egypt out of us.
Kabbalah explains that the Hebrew word for Egypt, Mitzrayim, means limitations, boundaries, constraints. In breaking out of Egypt, we were freed from those constraints, changed forever. From the moment Pharoah let us go, there was no longer any force in the world powerful enough to keep a Jew from connecting with G-d. No force in the world.
But inside the Jew – that’s a different story.
Many times over the millennia of our history we were enslaved, oppressed, expelled – and much worse. The world has not been a hospitable place for the Jews. But in each of those situations, Jews kept the Torah. Though the world has tried to destroy the Jewish nation time and time again, the Jews have never agreed to disappear.
Nevertheless, Egypt remains alive inside the hearts of each one of us. It makes us feel small and unworthy. It makes us forget who we are and who we could become. It makes us believe that we have to blend in with those who seem bigger and more powerful than ourselves. It gives us the stubborn illusion that the world is solid and real, and that the intimate presence of G-d and our own souls is a fantasy or a dream.
This “slave mentality” is the cause of all the limiting beliefs, uncertainties and fears that are in our way. It makes us feel helpless and disempowered. It cuts us off from the miracles of our past, the potential of our future and our own truly infinite power to change our world for good.
Please return for Part 2 of our post in just a few days.
