As I have said before, 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.
It is not for
nothing that the Torah tells us, over and over, to remember that we were Slaves
in the land of Egypt. The Jewish ideal
acknowledges that a life free from external tyrannies is an absolute
prerequisite to a life of obedience to God.
The Jewish ideal understands that this freedom is not only for us but
for all peoples. The Torah drives home
this point again and again, lest we forget it or minimise its importance.
Unfortunately
it is too easy to not feel an emotional bond with our distant
ancestors. It is easy to ask, as does
the Wicked Child of the Seder, “What is all this to you?” That is, to you, and not to him. In our local community, with the
exception of two members who were born there, we have not literally come
out of Egypt. We might therefore,
perhaps understandably, find it difficult to empathise with our ancestors. We might find it difficult to identify with this
aspect of their experience.
That’s why the
Midrash makes the point of explaining the meanings behind the Hebrew word Mitzrayim. Mitzrayim is, of course, the Hebrew
equivalent of ‘Egypt.’ If you attended
our Seder here at temple, or if you’re otherwise familiar with A Family
Haggadah, the version we use, then you surely noticed that it does not
translate Mitzrayim as ‘Egypt,’ but renders it as transliterated Hebrew
in the English text. And there’s an
important reason for this.
In Arabic, the
word for Egypt is Misr, which means ‘corn,’ or ‘grain.’ Of course, this is a reference to the Valley
of the Nile being a breadbasket for a part of the world that has always
suffered from scant and uncertain annual rainfall. The Hebrew Mitzrayim could be assumed,
linguistically, to be a plural form of Misr.
But the Hebrew equivalent of Misr is actually Dagan. Although Egyptian Arabic and Hebrew are
somewhat-related languages, the word-root in this case is not common. Rather, the Rabbis inform us that the meaning
of Mitzrayim is, ‘a narrow place.’
This makes
sense if you have ever been to Egypt or if you are aware of its geography. Because although Egypt appears on maps as a
rectangle with the Sinai Peninsula appended to its northeast corner, almost the
entire population of the country lives on the banks of the River Nile, or its
delta. Ancient Egypt was not nearly as
crowded as the country is today with its estimated 86 million inhabitants. But Herodotus, a Greek historian in the 5th
century BCE, described the Egypt of his age as being densely populated despite
periodic famine and a short life expectancy.
So the Egypt
that the Israelites experienced was a narrow place. Physically, to be sure. But also spiritually as it was ruled
by the Pharaoh who capriciously ascribed to himself the powers of a god, and who
ruled along with the priests of the cults of the various other gods. Perhaps that’s why the Hebrew term Mitzrayim
is plural. Or perhaps, because the
land was narrow for the Israelites and other resident aliens, as well as
for the Egyptians themselves. After all,
the same Herodotus described in detail a land of extreme poverty and poor
distribution of its considerable wealth and resources.
As with most
lessons from our Jewish past, the lesson of the Exodus comes as both a history
lesson and as a metaphor for us to apply today.
The ‘problem’
with Egypt was that it was a place of narrowness, and lack of freedom and
opportunity. Just as our ancestors
trusted God to free them from that place of limits and constriction, we in our
age should trust God to free us from places of limits and
constriction. And just as the narrowness
of Egypt refers to both its physical reality and the mindset that this and its
culture fostered, so too should we avoid ‘narrow’ places of all kinds: physical, intellectual, and spiritual. Jews have heeded and embraced this lesson
through millennia of life in difficult places and times. We have a history of transcending limitations
and reaching for greatness. But I fear
that the lesson is now fading. Nowadays I
often hear, in conversation with Jews both here and elsewhere, far too much
whining about limited potential and opportunity. About the ‘disabilities’ that come from being
a Jew. About an expectation of
marginality because of our ancestry, our religious affiliation, or both.
But this
whining and self-pity is not the eternal way of our people. Jews represent only 0.2 percent of the
world’s population, but Jews have won 41 percent the Nobel Prizes in economics,
28 percent in medicine, 26 percent in physics, 19 percent in chemistry, 13
percent in literature, and nine percent in peace. This is only one narrow measure of our
impact. But by almost any other measure,
the positive impact on the world by Jews has been far out of proportion with
our numbers.
For most of us,
the tiredness from staying up late to complete the Seder has now passed. Soon, so too will the dry feeling in the
mouth from eating matzo. But my prayer
tonight, is that this lesson will continue to linger. Our Rabbis understood that the ancient
Israelites experienced Mitzrayim on a number of levels. And one of those levels was a lack of ‘space’
to achieve and flourish. May we never
inhabit such a space, either physically or in our minds. May we be freed of all narrow places, and
thus be free to allow God to inspire us to greatness. Shabbat shalom and Chag Sameach.
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