Inhibition: Mitzrayim (מִצָּרִים)

Jewish tradition seems to be fixated on Egypt; specifically, with leaving Egypt.

Much of the Five Books of Moses tells the story of the events leading up to and following the Israelites’ enslavement and subsequent exodus from Egyptian bondage. The impact of these events frames and fashions the formative stages of Jewish history.

In fact, the exodus shows up repeatedly in the Torah as the rationale behind many of the mitzvot, including the major Jewish festivals (not just Passover), all of which commemorate different aspects of the exodus.

There is even a specific mitzvah to remember the exodus every single day!1

Based on the above, one may be justified in asking: Why does the flight from Egypt, which occurred over three thousand years ago, occupy such a central place in Jewish consciousness? Why haven’t the Jewish people moved on from this ancient enemy as they have from so many other tyrannic oppressors that have since come and gone? Why keep returning to this particular trauma from their distant past?

According to Chasidic teaching, like all parts of the Torah, the exodus is not just an isolated episode from ancient history; rather, it is a perpetually relevant paradigm for life in the present. As our Sages teach:2 “In every generation (and, indeed, every day), one is obligated to see themselves as if they had personally left Egypt.” Egypt and the exodus thus exist within the Jewish psyche not only as a particular geographic location and historic event but also as a state of mind and central focus of self-awareness.

To understand this more deeply, we must go down to Egypt ourselves.

The Hebrew word for Egypt, Mitzrayim, is made up of the same Hebrew letters as the word meitzarim, which means limitations,3 symbolizing the areas in our lives where we feel stuck or constricted. In a personal sense, then, the exodus from Egypt implies an internal process of liberation, moving us beyond our own emotional, psychological, and physical limitations, which are often self-imposed.

The first step out of such internal bondage is the recognition and acknowledgment that our circumstances and capabilities are not fixed and that a different reality is always possible.

For example, since the 1990s and until recently, most psychologists believed that willpower was a limited resource that is subject to fatigue and is depleted with repeated use. Experiments consistently demonstrated the veracity of this hypothesis, until a new study4 showed that those previous observations held true only for those who already believed that willpower was limited.

Those with a “growth mindset”5 never exhibited any signs of dwindling self-control or motivation, regardless of how much willpower they exerted in working towards their goal.

This supports the idea that the beliefs we bring to a particular situation have the power to either create self-imposed boundaries or to break down the walls of existing assumptions.

As the saying goes: “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right!”

In addition to such perspectival elasticity, the quality of emotional receptivity is also crucial to the exodus story.

For instance, the Hebrew letters of the name Pharaoh, who enslaved the Jewish people in Egypt, can be rearranged to spell oreph, the neck.6 In Jewish mystical sources, the narrow channel of the neck represents a precarious place of potential constriction and blockage between the mind and the heart.

Healthy people generally form emotional reactions to acquired knowledge and understanding, which is what motivates them to act and change. Pharaoh is stuck; his heart is impenetrable and incapable of reacting meaningfully to the inescapable truths unfolding before his very eyes, even to the point of self-destruction and the ruin of his country! This blockage is reflected in the Torah’s description of Pharaoh’s heart as “hardening,”7 a peculiar expression that isn’t found in reference to anyone else in the Torah.

Pharaoh’s inflexibility, despite witnessing the ten plagues, which brought Egypt to its knees, reminds us of Earl Landgrebe’s quip at the Watergate hearings: “Don’t confuse me with the facts! I’ve already made up my mind.”

In contrast, Pharaoh’s daughter, Batya, was moved by the cry of an endangered infant and was unable to stand by idly in the face of injustice. In violation of her father’s genocidal decree, she retrieved the Israelite baby from the water and called him Moshe (Moses) because from the water meshisihu—I drew him out.8

True to the spirit of his name, time and again, Moses, too, was emotionally impacted by the injustices he witnessed around him, leading him to “draw out” and rescue those suffering persecution.

Unlike Pharaoh, Moses’ heart was open and receptive to the truth before his eyes, regardless of how that truth might impact his personal life. Therefore, Moses is not just the political opponent of Pharaoh, he is his psycho-spiritual nemesis, as well. His mission to bring the Jewish people out of Mitzrayim (Egypt) represents our personal struggle to liberate our soul-potential from the grips of our own meitzarim (constrictions).

The overarching theme of escaping one’s limitations reaches its crescendo in the climax of the exodus,9 at the Splitting of the Sea. This miraculous episode has come to symbolize the notion that many of the obstacles we perceive in our lives that seem impossible and impassable are not truly insurmountable and can be overcome with faith, fortitude, and forward movement.

If Egypt represents the tyranny of self-limiting beliefs and behaviors, the exodus signifies our spiritual journey towards expansive perception and limitless potential.

Therefore, we return to the story of the liberation from Egypt year after year, and day after day, in order to remind ourselves of this essential truth and translate it into practice.

We must never stop striving for freedom, because yesterday’s peak can become today’s prison cell.

This is the essence of what it means to leave Egypt.

In Jewish thought, Egypt is not merely a geographical location but also a limited state of mind that we must continually strive to transcend and leave behind.

A businessman who was becoming close to Chabad once told the Lubavitcher Rebbe: “I don’t see myself growing a beard or wearing Chasidic garb. Is there still a way I can call myself your Chasid?” The Rebbe replied with a smile, “Anyone who wakes up each morning and asks himself, ‘How can I become better today than I was yesterday, and better tomorrow still,’ I am happy to call my disciple.”