[I wrote this drash, or sermon, a number of years ago, and it seems appropriate to offer it here as we enter the season of Passover.]
I married a Jewish man many years ago, long before I knew that I myself was Jewish, and I still remember the first Passover seder I attended with his family — the same cousins we were with last night. As I heard them recite the account of the Exodus, and Pharoah, and the plagues, and the Egyptians being drowned after the Israelites crossed the Red Sea, I thought, wow, this is nothing but a 3000 year old grudge! Can’t we just all move on?
When I finally made the decision to formally convert to Judaism, 24 years ago this season, one lovely experience was having an image of myself that was almost like a daydream. I was back in Exodus times, a sojourner just having joined the Covenant, maybe even an Egyptian — the full moon was rising in the east, the caravan was packed and starting to move toward freedom, and I was only just barely ready! I was sitting on the ground, hurriedly strapping on my sandals, and running after the departing caravan crying, “Wait for me!”
Since then I have read arguments about whether or not there is actual historical evidence that our tribal forebears were in Egypt in those times, and whether they did actually escape slavery. I have heard theories about the likelihood of freakish meteorological events that could have caused the Sea of Reeds to actually become shallow enough to cross, or that could have caused raining frogs or record locust invasions. While somewhat interesting, for me personally these speculations are completely beside the point when I consider what the Pesach commemoration means to me.
If we were the kind of Jews who devoutly prayed three times a day, we would be reminded, several times each and every day, of God taking us out of the “narrow place” of Mitzrayim. I came to understand that there must be some very deep reason, some other reason than the simple historical record, for why it’s important to have this teaching permanently at the forefront of our consciousness. In the many Passovers since then I have been gratified to read and hear many teachings that have offered a more spiritual and even psychological understanding of the Exodus story.
One of my teachers, Rabbi Mordecai Finley, advises that a fruitful approach to the study of Torah is to think of it as a poem, or even as a dream. When we dream the Exodus dream, each figure, each image, could be considered a representation of some part of ourselves, and each provides a deep channel into our individual and collective consciousness that gives us a clue about what it really means to transform from enslaved people into free people.
Another great teacher of mine is James Hollis, a Jungian psychologist, and though he is not Jewish, he asks a very Jewish question, which is “Where are you stuck?” In other words, what is your Egypt, your “narrow place?” In Living the Examined Life: Wisdom for the Second Half of the Journey, he says, “Under each stuck place there is a wire, so to speak, that reaches down into the archaic field and activates a field of anxiety of which we are largely unaware but that has enough power to reinforce whatever complex that has been holding the line against change.” So what is the power that is holding the line against change in our Exodus dream? It’s Pharaoh. Each of us has an “inner Pharoah,” an aspect of our ego that has an altogether different agenda than our soul’s liberation. What plagues does your divine nature inflict upon your inner Pharoah to compel you to transform into the best version of yourself you could possibly be? I don’t believe in “blaming the patient,” and therefore don’t ascribe to the idea that we necessarily “invite” disease into our lives. But I do think it is possible that in resisting the soul’s calling to the larger life that God wants us to live, the ways in which we resist can cause malady and distress — “plagues,” if you will. So, every day, when we are compelled to remember the Exodus story, it would behoove us to consider how our inner Pharaoh is at work blocking our soul from whatever liberation it is crying out to achieve.
In another psychological take on the Exodus dream, my teacher Rabbi Shefa Gold talks about the part of the story in which Pharaoh offers our people the compromise of departing from Egypt but insists that we leave our women and children and flocks and herds behind. In Exodus 10:9, Moses says no, “we will all go, young and old: we will go with our sons and daughters, our flocks and herds; for we must observe the Lord’s festival.” Shefa Gold says, our Whole Selves must remain integrated, and need to achieve liberation together: our feminine nature, our child nature, our animal nature, none can be left behind.
Then we reach the Red Sea. The waters break, the channel opens, and we pass through as an integrated whole. It is striking that so many mythological and theological stories use such birth imagery to symbolize human transformation.
But when we achieve freedom, it is not a one time event, there’s no “happily ever after.” This is why “rebirth” is such a constant image as well. We are not only being liberated “from” something, but also liberated “to” something. What we are being liberated from is often all too clear. Sometimes it is a personal or interpersonal issue, like liberation from an addiction, or a toxic relationship, or a self-inflicted and self-defeating limitation, or a wrong turn that has led us away from our life’s purpose. Sometimes there are actual enslaving circumstances in our external lives that we need to escape. But at the moment of liberation we might not even know what we are being liberated “to.” In fact, most likely, over and over we will spend all of our days discerning what we are being liberated to do. We are not given an instruction manual once we pass through the watery channel. Each one of us will always be a work in progress.
But, every day there is an opportunity to search for liberation from the narrow places of our lives. Every day we have to fight the intransigence of our Inner Pharoah. Every day gives us a chance to put on our sandals as we gaze upon the rising full moon and run after the departing caravan on its way to liberation.