Thoughts on Parashat Vaera 5785
Rabbi Menachem Mirski
Prepare for a dry, philosophical thought.
What was the story of the exodus from the Land of Egypt about? Certainly it was about leaving a political entity, an empire with a corrupt political system that was self-serving for its elites. This is the social and political part of the whole process of the liberation of the chosen nation.
But the whole story of Exodus also has its spiritual aspect, not less important than the political one. It was about liberating ourselves from all kinds of habits – moral, psychological, cultural and religious, habits and patterns of behavior that did not allow for a full spiritual and moral development of the Jewish people. We were chosen by God to establish a new political entity in the land of Israel but also a new religious culture and civilization, i.e. Judaism, that would elevate human spiritual condition, necessary to create a just society.
In Hebrew, Egypt is called Mitzrayim. According to the text on Jewish mysticism, the Zohar, the name is derived from mitzrayim, meaning “narrow straits” (mi, “from,” tzar, “narrow” or “tight”). When God took us out of Mitzrayim, He extricated us from the place of constricted opportunities, tight control, and narrow-mindedness, where movement was severely limited.
Therefore, by leaving Egypt, we are leaving a place of a variety of conscriptions. Liberation starts with the freedom of thought and belief. That’s why God, through Moses’ mouth says in our parasha:
[…] “Let My people go so that they may worship Me in the wilderness.” But you have paid no heed until now. (Exodus 7:16)
And it mentions this idea twice.
This teaches us also about our own exodus, from our own habits, things that are holding us back and are impediments for our growth and development.
Each of us lives in his or her own mitzrayim, the external or physical narrow straits of financial or health constraints or, perhaps, personal tragedy; universally, the psychological burdens to which we subject ourselves. Like the duality in virtually all of Passover’s symbols, they work in two ways: they turn us into both slaves and oppressors, of ourselves and others. Passover leads us to question the values and attitudes we hold and which hold us to those roles.
Yes, as I mentioned, all kinds of human liberation start with the freedom of thought and belief. That’s why we have to have laws guaranteeing freedom of speech in society: people need to communicate all kinds of ideas between each other, including the crazy ones or terribly wrong – because we also learn from bad ideas and bad experiences, if not fundamentally from them. People need to be able to exchange all kinds of ideas with each other in order to grow as a community. Thus, every censorship, even if it’s done for a noble cause, and even if 90% of society agrees with it – every censorship is wrong because what is censorship? It’s an illegitimate power grab, made by an individual or group who thinks that they, for some bizarre reason, have a right to regulate the discourse and to objectively judge what ideas and theories are true and kosher, and what are not.
In every case of liberation we need to liberate our minds first, to see the opportunities in the world. But this is only the first stage. The second stage is always about behavioral changes. Every promising and worth believing idea needs to be tested and then implemented in practice. Once it is, it brings a real change to the world and takes its part in everyday re-creation of the world. If an idea is good and happens to bring positive outcomes in the society – like trying to make the job opportunities more equal by banning all kinds of discriminations or removing discriminatory policies – this ideas will somewhat by itself determine a certain part of human history, until it is no longer necessary because the change it aimed for happened. When that happens, we know that the idea was of historically relative character, attached to certain historical conditions that needed to be changed.
But there are some ideas and principles that are compelling, therefore worth pursuing, but we have learned that they are so lofty that we don’t see them achievable, at least when we look at the current state of our world. One of them is the idea of creating a just society in which everyone will be judged and treated fairly, according to a sophisticated culture or system regulating the society. Our experience often ridicules the idea that universal justice is at all achievable, yet despite that many of us don’t give up on believing that’s our fundamental human goal worth striving for in all circumstances.
To summarize and conclude my little political philosophy tractate: liberation always starts with liberation of the human mind from somehow established and allegedly unquestionable system of ideas ruling a certain kind of human society. Then the action to first test (very important and often skipped in the political realm), and then to implement the idea. No change can happen without human action. Therefore, because the factor of action and implementation is crucial in terms of implementing any vision of the human society, these visions of the society will be judged ultimately on the basis of their outcomes, implemented or not. This also means that ‘better ideas’ may simply lose with ‘average ones’ if the former are not genuinely meant to be implemented.
Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Menachem Mirski
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