We were slaves in Egypt

On some level the story of yetzias miztrayim is not just the story of leaving Egypt, or even of leaving slavery, but a story of building human consciousness itself. It seems to me symbolically important that in going from Egypt to Israel, the Israelites also went from Africa to the Middle East. Human history is filled with failed attempts to leave Africa. This last time, we succeeded.

In Egypt, the pyramids were temples unlike anything human civilization had ever seen. Pharaoh thought these were tributes to him. He did not understand that the slaves were building temples for God.

But we were slaves in Egypt. And perhaps too often we focused on the bitterness of being slaves to Pharaoh instead of the learning and growth some of us were accomplishing.

There was nothing to do in Egypt but build and help others build. No markets to master, no degrees to attain, no political processes to manipulate. All intellectual pursuits worth attaining had to be focused within.

It was only a partial success. We did not succeed in our mission. Many were overwhelmed with the brutality of being slaves, and the mission was aborted early.

We took what we learned in Egypt, and replanted it in the Land of Israel. We built a temple of our own to God. But the gaps in our partial success can be seen in our own collective memory, and in the focus of the Hagaddah, We do not discuss what we learned in Egypt, or what we were supposed to accomplish. Rather, we focus on a miraculous Exodus, and on the pain of being slaves. This focus on victimology instead of internal and communal accomplishment hinders us to this day. The replacement focus is an understandable–but still tragic–stumbling block to greater consciousness and refinement. Many laugh at us for this. Not because we are failing to be like them, but because we are failing as Jews. This is not what being Monotheistic should mean. This was the siren that Dasan and Avirum responded to. These men sought a better place in Egypt, and did not prioritize serving God and growing spiritually.

Today we live in an era when it seems that Monotheism is almost an afterthought for many segments of Jewry. The Left is overly concerned with social justice. The Conservative Movement is the most twisted offender, like a severely OCD person who can’t stop washing and rewashing his hands when in front of a sink. The Modern Orthodox seem all but consumed with Zionism and/or a second-rate materialism. And if the haredim had written the Haggadah, they would write solely about Moshe Rebbeinu and the Eruv Rav,

Certainly celebrating a move from savage and brutal life to one of law and (hopefully) shrewd compassion is rightly a critical part of the Pesach story, and so is the justice meted out to those who arrogantly attempted to enforce tyranny. But we should not forget the growth accomplished by the slaves of Egypt, and ask ourselves why slavery was an important part of the learning in the first place. On some level, it is they who are our role model. Those who accepted on faith that they were on a learning mission grew from the utter lack of ego distractions. They were learning to serve God, and were helping others to do the same.
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Until fairly recently, I was upset that the Torah spoke of miracles of leaving Egypt that I do not believe happened. Staffs turning into snakes, rivers splitting, all that mythical stuff. But the miracles need not be literal, but rather, are to underlie the impossibility of human existence by pure chance. The story of leaving Egypt is important in explaining the noble quest for the building of civilization, and the growth of human consciousness itself.

All human beings originally come from a brutal and harsh primitive world. Some have stayed there. Others have left, but still retain many aspects of that brutality, which resurfaces in so many horrible ways. This is how life is when you don’t consistently seek a higher consciousness, based on a hope that that is what we are supposed to do with our time here.

Evolution itself is a quest, always threatened by hateful leaders, and the natural plagues that the world throws at us. The Passover story is a hope that this journey of man is not in vain, and not without purpose, but is about growth. We can leave Egypt behind, but we must be grateful slaves to God to truly escape from being reluctant or willing slaves to the Pharaohs of life.

A Zissen Pesach