Our Ancestors Found Their Light; You Can Too

Shabbat Hagadol: Finding Our Light

The Shabbat before Passover is called Shabbat Hagadol, the great Shabbat. There are several reasons for this moniker, primarily that a great miracle occurred that day.

On this day, the Egyptian firstborn observed Jews leading lambs down the public streets to their homes. This was surprising because the Egyptians worshipped lambs. Though they knew Jews ate lamb, Jews always did so behind closed doors to avoid antagonizing the Egyptians. Suddenly, Jews were parading down the streets, leading lambs to their homes.

The Egyptian firstborn demanded an explanation, and the Jews replied that the Jewish G-d instructed them to slaughter the deity they worshipped. This shocked the Egyptians, and their firstborn realized their time was running out. They demanded that Pharaoh liberate the Jews, but Pharoh refused. The firstborn led a fierce rebellion against Pharaoh, but the uprising was defeated. Sure enough, four days later, the Jews slaughtered their Paschal Lambs and were liberated that night.

This is a great miracle, in fact, the greatest kind of miracle. All miracles occur when G-d intervenes to vanquish the aggressor and defeat our enemies. This miracle entailed the enemy fighting to free us. Those who benefitted most from enslaving us—the firstborn, the cream of the crop—risked their lives to free us. Most miracles occur when G-d bends nature to His will. In this case, nature bent itself to G-d’s will.

Though this miracle was entirely G-d’s doing, our ancestors did something to stimulate it; they found their equilibrium. For centuries, they hid behind concealing walls when they ate lamb. They did their best to avoid antagonizing their overlords. They preferred to blend in and not make waves. On the surface, they pretended to worship the lamb like the Egyptians. When they finally threw caution to the wind and embraced their true identity as Jews, the Egyptians embraced their authentic role as creations of the One G-d, who are beholden to the One G-d. Nature bent itself to G-d’s will.

Jewish Idols
Though Jews ate lamb in secret, many Jews assimilated into the Egyptian culture and embraced their idolatrous ways. For these Jews, slaughtering the lamb was not just about asserting their true identity but slaying the idols they, too, worshipped. On this day, they paraded down the street with a lamb and, thus,  disavowed their allegiance to the Egyptian gods. They admitted their errors to themselves first and then to the world at large.

These Jews achieved an even more profound personal victory. They turned their lives around. Rather than worshipping empty promises and false hopes, they embraced the eternal, unchanging, unflinching G-d. This was a total break from their past and, therefore, more traumatic. But with the trauma and the pain came a breakthrough that liberated them from the vise of assimilation and allowed them to be themselves.

Modern Idols
Idol worship is no longer popular today, at least not in the Western Hemisphere. But we each have our idols. We acknowledge their authority, submit to them, and let them run our lives. They are our insecurities, anger, addictions, fear, trauma, and triggers. We treat these broken parts of ourselves as idols and cede control to them as if they were all-powerful.

The pain of past traumas can sometimes be so deep that we are afraid to let them in. We deny it, block it out, and do our best to pretend it isn’t there. These idols have no power over us except for the power we give them. If we confront these traumas directly, we will be free of them, but we are afraid of confronting them. Thus, we enslave ourselves to them.

We avoid them as best we can and pay the price they exact. The price is shutting down parts of ourselves, avoiding vulnerability at all costs, skipping social engagements, and feeling like a fraud in public. The price often includes a short temper, triggers that force us to escape, and a need to control everyone around us.

We are so afraid of getting hurt that we make life miserable for everyone around us. We alienate our friends and support systems to the point of isolation. We feel like a fraud, so broken and unworthy that we unconsciously sabotage every friend, family member, and opportunity for success.

Our True Identity
We worship at the beck and call of these triggers, pains, and insecurities, but they are false idols because they don’t really have power over us. We define ourselves by these traumas, but they are not our true identity. Every Jew has a sliver of G-d within. We are filled with a powerful light. We don’t need to slay our demons; we just need to open ourselves to our inner light. Once we embrace our true selves, once we tap into our inner Divine light, the idols are revealed to be false. They are powerless against our light.

For centuries, the Jews in Egypt avoided their inner light. They behaved as if they were enslaved to the false gods of Egypt. They denied their true selves and acted as if they were frauds. The truth was that their idols were frauds.

When we believe ourselves to be unworthy, we become magnets for molesters who abuse and enslave us. The Jews were enslaved to the Egyptians because they lost sight of their true identity as G-d’s firstborn. As soon as they embraced their inner light and true identity on that fateful day, the power Egypt held over them disappeared.

The firstborn, the cream of the Egyptian crop, lost all power over the Jews and picked up arms to fight for the Jewish cause. Rather than the Egyptian firstborn reigning over the Jews, they acknowledged what Jews finally dared to acknowledge: that the Jew is the real firstborn—the child of G-d.

Find Yourself
The key to the Passover experience is to find ourselves in the story of the Exodus. It is not enough to celebrate the emancipation of our ancestors. We must find a personal path to liberty. We must liberate the parts of ourselves that feel unloved, unworthy, and unwelcome. We must soothe the parts of us that are traumatized and in deep, searing pain. We must heal ourselves of the demons that plague us in the dark of the night when no one is looking, not even us.

When we find ourselves in the story of Egypt, we can chart our course to freedom. We can make our personal exodus. And as we do, the factors and circumstances that held us back and imprisoned us will become our greatest source of empowerment. We will find strength in our weakness and light in our darkness. We will follow the path of light to true liberty, and then we will be free to release our inner light. To find the nexus between G-d and us and release our core inner strength; the sliver of G-d, the Jewish soul.

Happy Passover.