Shabbat HaGadol: Leaving Egypt

בְּכָל דּוֹר וָדוֹר חַיָּב אָדָם לִרְאוֹת אֶת עַצְמוֹ כְאִלּוּ הוּא יָצָא מִמִּצְרַיִם, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר (שמות יג), וְהִגַּדְתָּ לְבִנְךָ בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא לֵאמֹר, בַּעֲבוּר זֶה עָשָׂה ה’ לִי בְּצֵאתִי מִמִּצְרָיִם

In each and every generation a person must view himself as though he personally left Egypt, as it is stated: “And you shall tell your child on that day, saying: It is because of this which HaShem did for me when I came forth out of Egypt” (Exodus 13:8) – Mishnah Pesakhim 10

On Shabbat HaGadol we are standing at the edge of the desert, about to leave Egypt. At this moment, all we know is what we are leaving: a form of slavery. There are too many ways in which we escape the meaning of this moment. By imaging the future we avoid thinking about the present; by worrying and planning we distract ourselves. But this is not the mitzvah.

The mitzvah – the religious obligation – is to immerse ourselves in the transitional moment of leaving Egypt. In ancient Israel the threshhold is a highly significant place, and in Jewish law it is an important border between two different realities that is nevertheless difficult to define. The very first subject of the Talmud is to define when day turns to night, and it takes pages and pages to consider. Our ancestors put amulets in the doorway to guard our going out and our coming in; we echo that act with every mezuzah we affix. 

If change is difficult, the first step into change is momentous. Most of us avoid it by any means possible. You don’t leave the bad situation, you try again – because as it is said, “the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t know”.

It is an evil that we have come to see as acceptable; this is what the divine urge is always  prompting us to leave behind. In any form of slavery, external control is key; one is subordinate to a structure, not of one’s choosing, but which comes to dominate every aspect of one’s life. To leave it is to leave one’s life, as one knows it; in a way, to die and be reborn. Perhaps this is why we tell the story in spring. 

We do have some potential comfort: we can choose to take this step together. We can hold each other’s hands and face the wilderness. For the length of our history we have found some comfort in that possibility, even as we have faced all kinds of unknowns. The problem is that some of us keep trying to go back to Egypt, and pulling the rest of us with them.

וַיֹּאמְר֖וּ אִ֣ישׁ אֶל־אָחִ֑יו נִתְּנָ֥ה רֹ֖אשׁ וְנָשׁ֥וּבָה מִצְרָֽיְמָה

And they said to one another, “Let us head back for Egypt.” (Numbers 14.)

Because it’s not all singing and dancing in joy after crossing the Sea and eluding certain death. There is terror in the unknown and undefined reality that will be confronted when we take that first step past the threshhold of the known. It’s why a toddler wants to bring a favorite toy on the first day of school; why good luck charms and good luck rhythms mean so much to us; and it’s why the golden calf was created.

What are we to imagine, in the thought of ourselves literally leaving Egypt, if not that we are – we too, we are also always – constantly on the precipice of the unknown, and therefore, can we understand that we are constantly at risk of creating a golden calf. The little golden bull is easy to laugh at when we encounter the story, but we should be sobered up when we remember that thousands of our people killed, or were killed, by our own people as a result.

What could possibly make us seek to kill each other? What could cause us to destroy our own community, and in so doing, our only strength and support in the wilderness? The golden calf incident seems a form of delusion safely far away from us, but let’s consider the question from the other direction: if it makes us kill each other, it reeks of idolatry. 

Idolatry, then, is the constant threat confronting us in the territory of the unknown. This is not a past nor settled problem; this is the constant challenge, in every generation. Idolatry cannot be defined by its artifacts, but by its effects. It causes the sundering of community. It abrogates all that we live by (“do not murder” for example, in the original case). This is the path back to Egypt, which we are commanded never to take.

וְלֹֽא־יָשִׁ֤יב אֶת־הָעָם֙ מִצְרַ֔יְמָה… ה֙’ אָמַ֣ר לָכֶ֔ם לֹ֣א תֹסִפ֗וּן לָשׁ֛וּב בַּדֶּ֥רֶךְ הַזֶּ֖ה עֽוֹד

HaShem has warned you, “You must not go back that way [to Egypt] again.” (Deut. 17.16)

A traumatized people may understandably, inevitably, make an idol of certainty to cling to. We make an idol out of halakhah when we take our perfectly functional mitzvah system and twist it out of recognition, creating insanely strict rules of kashrut or Jewish identity (intermarriage, gender expression, conversion) that destroy more than it nurtures. Today it is the modern State of Israel, more poignantly because for many secular Jews it has been the object of their worship for generations of disaffection from organized religious community. 

Alas, today it is the State of Israel which is our idolatry, our enslavement, our distraction from uncertainty, the bar by which we judge and even kill each other. This is the meaning of the death of Rachel Corrie in 2003. This is the reason for the killing of friendships, of communities, of belonging. This is the cause of the abrogation of every Jewish ethic in the occupation and oppression and persecution of Palestine.

Tellingly, when our ancestors recall the wandering in the wilderness they remember it as a time of blessing:

כֹּ֚ה אָמַ֣ר ה’ זָכַ֤רְתִּי לָךְ֙ חֶ֣סֶד נְעוּרַ֔יִךְ אַהֲבַ֖ת כְּלוּלֹתָ֑יִךְ לֶכְתֵּ֤ךְ אַֽחֲרַי֙ בַּמִּדְבָּ֔ר בְּאֶ֖רֶץ לֹ֥א זְרוּעָֽה׃ 

Thus said HaShem: I accounted to your favor the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride—how you followed Me in the wilderness, in a land not sown. (Jeremiah 2.2)

On this Shabbat HaGadol, we are summoned to imagine ourselves leaving the slavery of certainty which is Egypt for the uncharted and uncertain future. We are challenged once again this year to follow love into the wilderness, to guard our steps with righteousness guided by the mitzvot that offer us a path toward tikkun – for ourselves and for our people. All we have to do is leave behind us everything that closes our hearts and makes us feel safe.

If it causes human suffering, it’s not the path of HaShem.

If it abrogates the mitzvot, it’s not Judaism.

If it closes the heart, it’s idolatry, and you’re still in Egypt.