There's something especially beautiful about reading the Torah as a personal roadmap.
From that angle, the Torah's narrative about our slavery in Egypt becomes a directly relevant story of our own personal struggles and successes.
This week’s Torah portion, Shemot, speaks of the enslavement of the Jews in Egypt. The Egyptian oppression was something of a double-edged sword. While it was a horrifying illustration of human cruelty, Torah wisdom also points out that this terrible experience was an important contribution to our maturation as a people. That we journeyed to Mount Sinai and received the Torah directly after the Egyptian slavery suggests a connection between the two experiences. Our slavery in Egypt followed a long period of complacency and assimilation. Could it be that what we learned from our difficult period in Egypt was an important precursor to receiving the Torah?
Let’s look at how the Egyptians mistreated us. They weren’t just looking for free labor, they were trying to crush our spirit. Scripture describes one method employed by the Egyptian slave masters as being: “crushing work.”
The Egyptians understood that people naturally develop behavioral patterns that become difficult and uncomfortable to overcome. So, the Egyptians devised a devilish plan to break the Hebrews' bodies and spirit: They didn't just burden the Jews with physical work; they chose labor that grated against their ingrained habits and self-image.
In the Talmud's words: "They gave women’s work to the men and men's work to the women." They didn’t want to simply assign difficult work that would only break the body. They wanted to disrupt the Jew’s self-image as well. They observed that in which the Jewish found comfort and gave them work that was psychologically uncomfortable for them.
Cruel.
At the same time, enduring that experience gave the Jews a hint of how to achieve their spiritual freedom.
Some of life’s greatest straitjackets are our own less-than-productive habits and patterns. They're so ingrained it's difficult to even notice them, which makes them especially insidious and difficult to change. That’s exactly why addressing them is such an important part of our own personal Mount Sinai experience.
We can find the strength, self-awareness and fearless commitment to move toward our best selves. We can overcome our own deeply ingrained behavioral patterns and choose more productive, enlightened behaviors with freedom and purpose. Breaking unproductive habits and patterns can be quite strenuous, but we are blessed to be able to do it in freedom, and there’s no other way to reach our personal Mount Sinai. And to assist in our journey, we have the greatest of roadmaps – the one given to us at THE Mount Sinai.
Let’s break free.