Pesach 2011

Pesach 2011

Every year we sit down and re-tell the story of Pesach. With a mighty arm and a strong hand God freed us from the evil Pharaoh of Mitzrayim. We are so used to it. It’s fun. The food is good. We are surrounded by loved ones and friends.

I personally love Pesach for all of these reasons. However, what I’m seeing more and more is that we (as human beings) are evolving and it’s important to start experiencing this important holiday with a different frame of mind. Same story, let’s say. Different construct, one that fits who we really are today. And I’m saying this not only because the story itself can become rote (as Isaiah bemoans) so that the elders fall asleep and the kids squirm in their seats…but there’s something deeper going on. A forceful and steady need for change. And I want to try to explain it point by point.

First, we tend to want to understand our reality in the frame of who we are. What are we? We are humans. Therefore we see the Pesach story as the freeing of our human selves so that we can have the strength and courage to achieve human revelation at a mountain called Sinai.

Cool.

But according to Torah, what is a human? I mean, what’s the definition? Are there any boundaries? Well, there are. It seems clear to me and some sages that as humans we are defined by our level of consciousness. In other words, at a certain level… we aren’t even human anymore. We achieve a level of consciousness…of intimacy with Hashem… that is beyond-human. In Exodus we read that a man cannot see God’s face and live. Well then (we wonder) who can? This is the boundary created by Hashem. Once we see God’s face we have crashed through the boundaries of our human selves and we are in a whole new beyond-human arena. It has to do with light and divine sparks, the shooting of rays from our every cell, our fingertips, our mouths…so that it falls to Him (or Her) like rain. Revelation is this very evolution.

So we’re sort of at a crossroads. Yes, we can tell the Pesach story as human trials and tribulations, the good Israelites and the bad Pharaoh but the very telling in this form keeps us enslaved to the very level of consciousness…the very humanity… that we are evolving away from! How very ironic! Instead, it would be great to experience the whole sequence of events as the merging and flow of light, the propelling of our sparks. Simply in the weaving of the story in this way we can reach poetically…in form…to the revelation itself.

And yet, we need to be kind to ourselves and gentle. For all of us who have changed jobs, spouses, homes or towns or countries..we know the challenge. Imagine changing beyond our human consciousness! Not easy. It’s so comforting being human. It’s what we’re used to. But….we may as well begin our transformation or (for some percentage of us) continue…because it is what God has commanded us to do.