Choosing Suffering or Choosing Blessing

This week’s Torah portion is Bo, which means, Come. God commands Moses to go to Pharaoh to warn him of the last three plagues. Later in the portion, the Israelites are given instructions about the Pesach offering to God, in preparation for departure; and the protection of marking the doors with the blood from the pesach offering; and also staying inside, away from danger. We are given our own calendar and the commandments concerning Passover, to celebrate it with matzah and bitter herbs as an eternal decree; the first borns are consecrated to God. Then Moses leads the Israelites out of Egypt.
In the previous portion there had been seven plagues. Toward the beginning of this portion, Moses and Aaron approach Pharaoh. Now they warn him of the 8th plague, the swarm of locusts, yet Pharaoh still refuses to send the people out. Then Pharaoh’s servants say to him, “Send out the men that they may serve God, their God. Do you not yet know that Egypt is lost?” (Ex. 10:7). There is a hidden reality that Pharaoh needs to know. This verse seems to extend the theme of knowing that I spoke about last week. Pharaoh thinks he is resisting Moses. In fact, just before the 10th Plague, Pharaoh says to Moses: “Go from me, Beware! Do not see my face anymore for on the day you see my fact you shall die!” (10:28). Pharaoh actually thinks that by getting rid of Moses, he is eliminating his problems. Pharaoh holds the mistaken notion that he is resisting Moses and also the Jewish people. He doesn’t realize that he is resisting truth itself.
Whatever shows up in one’s life repeatedly is an attempt by God to manifest a higher truth. God tries to attune Pharaoh’s consciousness to this by showing him that everything Moses or Aaron did or predicted was true or came true. But Pharaoh is just like us. We want to hold onto the present conditions and our present reality, our assumptions and frames of reference. We resist learning the lessons that God and life is trying to teach us. A large part of gracefully making the transition from youth to maturity, to advanced age is to learn the correct lessons from our experiences. And we resist this, because we do not yet understand that cosmic truths are trying to become manifest in our lives. My favorite sage, the S’fat Emet said, “Always one must first set right the physical and the natural and only afterwards can we come to new insights.” In other words, we have to do certain work: the work of purification: of setting things right emotionally, intellectually, morally, and also physically. And then we will be able to apprehend the truth that is manifesting before us. There are those of us who have been hurt or disappointed by those we cared about. The wounds we suffered caused us to make decisions, which may or may not serve us later on in life. When we shut down certain parts of ourselves, we shut ourselves off from seeing certain truths. We only allow ourselves a kind of partial sight. We have chosen, like Pharaoh, to limit ourselves. In Pharaoh’s case, he transgressed the reality that the Moses and the Hebrews were connected to him and to the Egyptians. He couldn’t have fathomed this, but God was attempting to teach him. And because he kept resisting truth, resisting reality, the results that manifested in his life got worse and worse. When we make decisions that go against the truth of our connection to others, we not only learn the wrong lessons from our life experiences, but we lose opportunity for love, and friendship, and happiness. Things that happen to us occur in order to uncover a deeper truth. Isaiah said: For since the beginning of the world we have not heard, nor have we perceived by the ear, nor has the eye seen a God besides you, who should do such a thing for him who waits for him. In the Talmud (Berachot 34b), R. Joshua b. Levi commented: This is the wine which has been preserved in its grapes from the six days of Creation. R. Samuel b. Nahmani said: This is Eden, which has never been seen by the eye of any creature. ( Isa. 64, 3.)
These quotations attest to the hiddeness of truth that gradually makes itself known. The S’fat Emet expresses it differently: “All choice, all human actions and undertakings, come about in accord with God’s will.” In effect, this seems to be about negating choice. If there is only one right decision, then perhaps we may conclude that we are not really free. But it is through a full understanding of truth and hidden reality that we can become fully free. We are most free when we understand that we have only one choice: to choose happiness or to choose suffering. Pharaoh chose suffering. Thank God, we know better or perhaps we are constantly coming to know better. May we each choose openness to each other: connection, giving up the me for the us, and forming friendships that nourish us and bring us joy. May we understand how much truth has been given to us, is being sent to us, and may we learn all that which the God of love and goodness is teaching us.