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| Even today, Egypt is a place of sorrow |
As I said last night, and have said on numerous occasions before
that, one can easily make the argument that the Passover festival is the
foremost sacred occasion of the year bar none.
Of all the traditions and observances of Judaism, nothing comes closer
to encapsulating the very essence of the Jewish world-view and God-view. The centrality of this narrative in the
Jewish consciousness speaks volumes about what is at the root of our Tradition.
I pointed out
last night, that it is not for nothing that the Torah tells us, over and over
again, to remember that we were Slaves in the land of Egypt. The Jewish Ideal sees a life free from
external tyrannies is being absolutely essential to a life of obedience to
God. The Jewish Ideal prays for, and
actively seeks, freedom from all such tyrannies. But not just for Jews; the Jewish Ideal seeks
this freedom for all peoples. The Torah
drives home this point again and again, lest we forget it or minimise its
importance.
‘Egypt,’ Mitzrayim
in Hebrew, when invoked in the Torah is understood to mean a number of
things. Of course, it’s a physical
place, the actual setting of the drama that saw the birth of the People
Israel. But it can be seen as
linguistically connected to the Hebrew word tzar, meaning ‘narrow.’ Anybody who knows the geography of Egypt
understands this. Our Tradition also
sees the narrowness represented by Egypt as a mindset. As a sense of limitation and
constriction. I explained this in last
night’s drash, and I’m sticking to my story!
Linguistically, Mitzrayim
can also be related to the Hebrew word tzar meaning ‘sorrow,’ or
‘trouble.’
That Mitzrayim
was a place of sorrow and trouble for the ancient Israelites, is
self-evident. Sure, their descent to
Egypt represented their ultimately joyous reunion with their brother Joseph. The latter had become ruler over Egypt,
second only to Pharaoh himself. But their
descent also represented the plague of famine descending upon the Land of Canaan,
the land promised them by God. So their
very entrance into Egypt signified the end of their ability to live where God
had sent them.
Further tragedy
visited them when “a new king arose, who knew not Joseph.” And the people were ultimately enslaved to
Pharaoh to build his temples and storehouses.
Even after God had freed the people “with a mighty hand and an
outstretched arm, with signs and wonders,” they could not shake the mentality
of slaves. Thus, the people were
consigned to wandering in the desert until the last of the generations born in
Egypt had died off, before the triumphant re-entry to the Land of Israel could
commence. On so many levels, Egypt was
not a happy place for the People Israel.
But again, like
with the definition of Egypt as ‘a narrow place,’ we can take Egypt as an
actual place or as a metaphor.
If Mitzrayim
is a metaphor for ‘a place of sorrow,’ then there is a clear message in the
narrative of the Exodus. We should
not remain in a place of sorrow.
As you know,
half of all European Jews are estimated to have perished in the Holocaust, in
the Nazi Shoah. After the war, after
liberation, so many of the survivors had only one thing on their minds: get out! Jews left Europe in droves, making it seem
for generations as if the Nazis had succeeded in wiping out the Jews. Except for small pockets here and there, it
seemed that the European continent was, in fact Judenrein. Many of us have spent time in Europe and
found it lovely in various ways. I’ve
shared with you many anecdotes of pleasant times on the Continent, when Clara,
the children and I were posted to Germany for four years. But if you superimpose in your mind’s eye the
world of the European Jews, a world which has all but vanished, it is difficult
not to feel some sense of despair over what was, and is no longer.
And who could
blame the Jews for leaving? All of
Europe was a House of Death. With
precious few exceptions, the different peoples of Europe had been happy to let
the Nazis do what they had thought all along should be done to the Jews. In many cases, they even helped the Nazis. So, after the war, Jews streamed west to the
USA and Canada. South to Australia and
New Zealand. East to the reborn State of
Israel. Europe was not a place to
remain. It was a house of sorrow.
Look at the
Continent even today. Many of you have
been following the story coming out of Ukraine this week. On Monday evening, masked thugs awaited Jews’
exit from their synagogue after the Pesach evening service in the Ukrainian
city of Donetsk, to inform them that they must register with the pro-Russian
authorities or lose their Ukrainian nationality and their property. The supporters of Russian rule in Eastern
Ukraine are distancing themselves from the initiative, but it is very telling
of local attitudes toward Jews. When
combined with attacks on Jews in other places in Europe, it makes one wonder
why any Jews still live there.
So the message,
that one should not remain in a place of sorrow, is an apt message. But what about remaining in a state of
sorrow? Same message, if you ask me.
You’ve heard me
say that happiness is a choice, and I stand by that definition. If our happiness is dependent upon others, we
will almost never achieve it. But if it
is within us to claim, then it really is a choice.
We often choose
misery and sorrow. Here and
elsewhere, I am continually saddened by the misery in which Jews wallow, year after
year after year. So many of us seem to have
forgotten not only how to be happy, we have forgotten about the very existence
of happiness. So we wallow in
misery, and our interactions with others reflect this essential unhappiness. It’s as if happiness itself was a subversive state
that we are not supposed to reach!
But our
Tradition informs us otherwise. For example,
the existence of Shabbat is supposed to give us a taste of happiness that will,
ideally, make us so want more that we will focus on bringing a bit of ‘Shabbat’
to the coming week. That’s the very
message behind the Havdallah ceremony which so many of you enjoy when we
perform it prior to a Saturday evening activity. But instead of experiencing Shabbat joy and
trying to make it last in small measure, we experience Shabbat herself
as a regime of limitation. No wonder so
many Jews have no desire to come and celebrate with us on Shabbat! For so many of us, our very mindset is that
Shabbat is supposed to be miserable.
And if we cannot experience joy even on Shabbat, then it is no wonder
that our lives in general are joyless, are ‘places of sorrow.’ Enough, people!
Soon, either Monday night or Tuesday night depending
on how traditional you are, Pesach will be finished. The dry taste of matzo will fade from our
mouths. We’ll exult in being free once
more to eat pizza and pasta and croissants. Yum!
But will we remember the essential message of Pesach? Indeed, will it have ever even registered, or
will we have missed its message one more year?
God took us out
of a Place of Sorrows. We are not supposed
to be in a Place of Sorrows. Or even a State
of Sorrow. If you are stuck in
such a state, then you know what to do. Get
out! No, it isn’t easy. But few things that are worthwhile in life, are
easy. Nobody else will remove the
sorrow from our souls. It is up to us to
choose happiness. To get out of
our personal Egypt – our own Place of Sorrow. Let’s do it now. Shabbat shalom and Chag Sameach.
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