UFARATZTA
Our Innate Potential for Transformation
“Avadim Hayinu...”
For centuries the children of Israel were enslaved in Egypt in bondage of body and spirit. They were crushed and beaten, physically and mentally. Spiritually too, they have lost their sense of identity and purpose. When Moses brought them the message of their deliverance from Egyptian bondage, they did not listen to him, the Torah states, "because of short breath and crushing labor." They were lost. However, after their liberation from enslavement, they attained, in a comparatively short time, the highest spiritual level a man can reach. Every man, woman, and child of Israel experienced Divine Revelation at Mount Sinai, absorbing the highest knowledge and inexhaustible source of wisdom and faith for all generations to come—the only time such a thing ever happened in history.
We often think that if we struggle with a bad habit, a painful emotion, an addiction, a bad relationship, or a difficult childhood, or if we struggle with our Jewish identity, it has to take a lot of time – perhaps many years – to heal or to change. It might. We don’t know how long it will take. But the story of the Exodus is essentially about the possibility of transformation. When we can look inside and see that who we truly are is beautiful, perfect, capable, full of love; how we are literally part of the Divine. Then, in one moment, we can transcend, let go of our old identity, and start living who we truly are.
Yet sometimes we are so filled with toxicity that we cannot even understand or feel how free we really are. That is what I want to ask you to do tonight: Start believing in your genuine potential for personal liberation in the most profound way. Tonight, share with yourself this thought: “I'm not a body with a soul, I'm a soul that has a visible part called the body.”
Matzah—the Food of Freedom
By the age of fifteen, we think we have it all figured out. There is nothing new to learn. The rest of life is simply reaffirming what we already know to be true. “I always knew that we can’t trust that guy.” “This family is good, and from that family stay away.” We have a certain way of seeing the world and we lock into it. As we get older it becomes the “truth.” We are stuck in our perception. We are arrogant. We believe that what we think of life and what we think of ourselves, and others, is true.
The staple food of Passover is matzah. It represents the food of freedom. Why?
Matzah—as opposed to bread—is a humble food. Lots of care was taken that the dough should not rise. Matzah is the process of humbling ourselves. Not breaking ourselves, but rather breaking our misinformed ego. It’s the realization that I don’t know. What I think, is simply that—what I think. It’s not the truth. We never know the full truth.
Matzah is the gateway to freedom. The message of matzah is that instead of living in our self-fulfilling prophecy of reality, we let go and become open to a new way of seeing things. There is always another way to see almost everything.
Who am I beyond what I think of myself? This is food (for thought) of hope. This is food (for thought) of healing.
Dare to let go of the shackles of your intellect. Dare to question what was solid and “true” for you yesterday. This is where you will meet the G-d of Abraham. This is the G-d that took us—and takes us out of our perpetual state—of Egypt.
Dare to let go and you will fall into the all-embracing hands of G-d.
The Impressionist artist Pierre-August Renoir (1841–1919) once said: “I am beginning to know how to paint. It has taken me over fifty years to work to achieve this result, which is still far from complete.”
Renoir said this in 1913, at the age of seventy-two. By this time, the artist was a master at his craft. He was well established and considered by many to be the greatest living painter in France. He knew the secret of not knowing. The secret of freedom.
