A Soulful Journey

" The essence of the Exodus is in the initial, faith-motivated decision to leave the ordinary, the routine life, and to follow God. This is the all-inclusive point of departure. Prior to that, there is nothing." Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

Rachel Naomi Remen says the opposite of slavery is not freedom, it's the unknown. When the Jewish people left Egypt, many of the people were angry at Moses. Because as horrible as it was, it was still all they knew.  What are you enslaved by?  What is your personal Egypt?  What can you do to step out of your comfort zone and achieve personal liberation?

“Say to them you are shepherds because, “Every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians.” – Genesis 26 In this way Joseph, forerunner of his brothers in Egypt, sought to use the hostility towards shepherds to ensure that the Jews ere kept separate from the populace.  Joseph wanted to keep his family from assimilating and being swallowed up by the land.

A merchant once came to Rabbi Moses, the Rabbi of Pressberg, known for his magnum opus as the Chatam Sofer, and asked the rabbi’s blessing for his business.   Rabbi Moses said to him: ‘I heard that your brother is very poor man and you aren’t helping him.’   The merchant justified himself:   ‘My business isn’t doing well, and I can not afford to help my brother now.” Rabbi Moses answered him, ‘It states in the Torah: “I too have heard the sighs of the children of Israel whom Egypt is enslaving.”    We know that the word, too , is meant to be inclusive.   What does it include here? This teaches us that even though all the Jews were enslaved, and that each one sighed for his own sorrows, nevertheless all heard the sighs of their brothers and felt their distress. It was because of this that God, too, come heard their sighs.”   - Rabbi Menachem HaCohen Heed the cries of the needy.

In  our sacred text , we are confronted with one of the most compelling obligations in all Torah.  “You too must befriend the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Deut. 10:19)  This command actually appears thirty-six times, which is not only emphatic but it is a very meaningful number in our tradition as it stands for “LIFE” times 2!  It is as if the Text whispers to us that we have a double obligation to never forget the pain of pour past and to use that knowledge to unlock the chains of those whom we consider as different, strangers.   That was us!   They are our past and they are our future. We hear the command to love the stranger so often and that we can lose sight of its power.  We do so at our peril and diminishment. A fugitive is one who is running from home, A vagabond is one who has no home; A stranger is one away from home, And a pilgrim is on his way home. All roads in life lead ...

Rabbi Yishmael taught: What is written? "You shall not go out, every man from his abode, until morning..."  (Exodus 12) since permission had been given to the Destroyer.  And he does not distinguish between the righteous and the wicked.  More, he commences with the righteous.  - Baba Kama 60a When the world grows dark and evil is rampant all suffer.  Is it not usually the good who suffer first?  They are the warning bell that should wake the moral conscience of the world.

There is a tradition that during our ancestor’s enslavement in Egypt Pharaoh ordered husbands and wives to live apart, to ensure that they would refrain from sexual relations.   Rabbi Shimon the son of Halafta said: “How did the daughters of Israel react to this decree?   They procured food and wine for their husbands in the fields who were exhausted from crushing labor.   After their husbands ate, their wives would take mirrors and gaze into them along with their husbands.   Each woman would say endearingly to her husband, “See I am more attractive than you.”   In this fashion each wife aroused the passion of her husband with the result that these women became the mothers of many children.   - Midrash Tanhuma Several lessons emerge: 1.      Do not give up. 2.      In your relationship keep the flame of intimacy burning. 3.      Love triumphs when given a chance. ...

A yeshiva bochur (student) asked who Moses’ mother was.  “The princess,” he replied without hesitation. “No,” another told him.   “She only took him out of the water.” “That’s what she says!”

The town of Sharm-al-Sheikh sits at a magnificent crossroads.   It is rich, luxuriant and beautiful.   Sharm-al-Sheikh was relinquished to Egypt as a part of peace agreement.   That is why Moshe Dayan once said, “If I had to choose between peace without Sharm-al-Sheikh and Sharm-al-Sheikh without peace, I would certainly take Sharm-al-Sheikh.” And yet when it came time to consider giving up the land there was little dissention for the sake of peace.   See how shalom can change the most hardened soul?