By: Rabbi Shlomo Ezagui
“In every generation and every day a person must see himself going out of Egypt.” The souls of humans are expected to move from strength to strength on a daily basis. Every day we must be mindful to ask ourselves. “Today, in what area of my life will I expand my horizons and progress upward?”
We are granted life for one sole reason, to improve ourselves and the world around us. The problem is, it’s not so easy. G-d did say it would certainly be worth it, but like everything of value it comes with great toil.
G-d created a condition to offer us personal challenge in the above task. In Hebrew it is called, Mitzraim – Egypt, and it is ruled by a king Pharaoh. Like the actual Egypt, Mitzraim is a constrained limiting and constricting, psychological and emotional condition were a soul is held back and held down not allowing it the freedom of expression and seriously limiting its potential.
The G-dly spark within, the true “I” of every person needs the chance to express itself spiritually. When it is not able to do so, a person feels stifled and unfulfilled. They will experiences a lack of full strength to succeed in their life mission. They will stumble a lot easier to the challenges and temptations of the inner “bad boy/girl.”
When Moses approached king Pharaoh to free the Israelites, pharaoh responded, “Who is G-d that I should listen to his voice.” King Pharaoh proclaimed, “The Nile is mine and I made it.” Pharaoh considered himself a god!
That is why we find in three different ways, G-d says regarding the Egyptians after they experience the plagues, they will finally know, “that I am G-d in the midst of the land.”
The staff of Moses was made of a very heavy and expensive stone and it had the ten plagues inscribed on it in a mnemonic of three words.
The sages tell us. The reason why the plagues were divided into three was to allude to the three types of people the plagues were coming to address. Since the Bible is teaching all people for all times, in one form or the other all three types can be found in each one of us.
There was a group of people who denied G-d. There was a group who said, there may be a G-d but he is up in the heavens. Then, there was a third group who said, G-d who created the heavens and earth, certainly fills the entire universe. However once the rules of nature were set in pattern even G-d has no role to play in good and bad, it is all in the hands of humans.
For each group G-d showed them that they were dead wrong.
The root of all downfall and of all weakness and perversion is when a person forgets there is a G-d and becomes arrogant and haughty, “self-made.” This leads to anger, frustrations, conceit, self-centeredness, emptiness, and everything in life is always a matter of, “what’s in it for me.” Even when being kind to another, it’s with an ulterior motive, because “if I am not to myself who else will be for me.”
Each one of the ten plagues address a different facet, another one of the ten dimensions in a soul that could use improvement to make it whole and perfect. The ten plagues divided into three categories completely liberated the souls from this mitzrayim – Egypt condition.
The plagues demonstrated not only is there a G-d, and he is very much here in this world with each one of us, but even more so, G-d always maintains the possibility of influence and control over everything at the whim of His will.
Knowing and absorbing this knowledge and awareness inside our psyche and feeling it in our emotions becomes the impetus to eliminate mitzraim and free the soul. The results are acceptance, peace, tranquility, tolerance, self-confidence, and inner strength.
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