EXODUS: A FORMULA FOR PERSONAL GROWTH

We will still commemorate the Exodus in the Messianic era because without that memory and the transformative quality that constituted the journey out of slavery, the liberation and awareness we will experience then would not be possible.

The Festival of Liberation and the Exodus from Egypt captures the imagination like no other historical event. It engrosses millions of television viewers around the world every year to watch a corny, melodramatic movie, compels academics to dig eagerly in the dessert like schoolchildren in a sandbox and inspires countless depictions and studies by filmmakers, artists and academics.

Perhaps all the hype is because Exodus is a not a commemoration of a 3,000 year-old event. Even events of this magnitude are forgotten as their relevance fade. Exodus is a mantra, a mantra that is the cornerstone of Judaism and marks the birth of the Jewish nation… a mantra of freedom. It is the mantra of true liberation, a path towards personal and collective freedom that is as relevant today as it was 3,000 years ago, as relevant in North America as it was in Mesopotamia.

Even in the Messianic era, when the entire world will enter a state of unprecedented peace and freedom, when we will all be truly liberated, Exodus will continue to be the mantra that we live by, the rallying cry that serves as the catalyst for social change and personal transformation.

What is Exodus, and where do its power and lasting resonance come from?

The Exodus is synonymous with freedom. However, though it is the source from which freedom flows, the Exodus from Egypt itself did not constitute freedom in the truest sense. Freedom, as defined by Kabbala and Chassidus, is the ability to achieve one’s true potential by transcending one’s own limitations and connecting to something higher. The Exodus from Egypt was a reality that was imposed on the Israelites from Above; they did nothing on their own to achieve the liberation, and so they were not able to internalize it or be transformed by it. They were only able to run away from the negative powers that enslaved them, but not run toward true liberation because the material reality in which they were immersed and the spiritual reality they were striving toward remained divided by a vast chasm.

That chasm between the higher and lower realities was only bridged when the Torah was received at Mount Sinai seven weeks later, when G-d Himself initiated a new era in which human beings, through following His directives, could transform the nature of things and fuse the material with the spiritual. The concept of purpose came into being. Those who were there at the time were conscious of this fusion, and as a result had an incredible awareness of the Divine within them and all around them – they experienced something way beyond what their limited perception of reality could have achieved. They experienced true liberation. However, because it came from Above, and the people were not ready for it, the experience itself – the complete unity and fusion of the material and spiritual – didn’t last. Nevertheless, the effects of the Mount Sinai experience reverberate to this day in our ability to perform physical deeds that are imbued with spirituality.

So even though liberation itself was not experienced until Mount Sinai (albeit temporarily), the Exodus – the abandonment of the negativity – is the starting point for the journey.

This model serves as a lesson for our own personal journeys:

When we want to embark on personal growth, when we want to enhance our awareness of the spiritual within the material, we first have to leave “Egypt,” we have to turn away from enslavement by abandoning the limitations – be they bad habits, false prejudices, social conditioning or the like – that hold us back from exploring life with an open mind. And although this itself does not constitute the ultimate liberation – which only comes later when one attains an elevated awareness that all things, both material and spiritual, are truly one – like the Exodus, it is the beginning.

That’s why we commemorate the days of the Exodus from Egypt – even though the Exodus took place on one specific day: Because the process of Exodus – of getting beyond your own self – is a constant striving.

And that’s why we will still commemorate the Exodus in the Messianic era: Because without that memory and the transformative quality that constituted the journey out of slavery, the liberation and awareness we will experience then would not be possible.

On a personal level, this process speaks volumes about the powerful role memory plays in the journey of self-discovery: By remembering where we come from, and the trials and tribulations we experienced, we get to carry with us the inspiration and transformative quality of the journey even after we reach the destination.

Reproduced with permission from Exodus Magazine