From smallness to hope – a d’varling for Bo

In this week’s Torah portion, Bo, we are deep in the story of the plagues and traumas that unfolded as a prelude to yetziat Mitzrayim, our Exodus or going-forth from the Narrow Place.

The Hasidic master known as the Me’or Eynayim teaches that our spiritual ancestors were so overwhelmed by the hardship and servitude of Mitzrayim that they lost דעת / da’at, knowledge or awareness of God. 

Part of what was so painful about Mitzrayim, he says, is that we lost access to our spiritual practices and our traditions. Maybe we had a vague sense that those things had meant something to our ancestors, but we weren’t living them. So our awareness of God atrophied like an unused muscle.

When we were in Mitzrayim, says the Me’or Eynayim, our דעת / da’at (awareness) was בגלות / in galut (exile) and בקטנות / in katnut (smallness). Our awareness of God went into exile, our awareness of God became diminished. And then he says something that really leapt out at me, reading it this year: it’s as though God says to us, התקטנתי במצרים — “I made Myself small in Mitzrayim.”

As though when our lives contracted, God’s own self contracted too. When we are in Mitzrayim, it is as though God shrinks. When we are in tight straits, when our hearts and souls feel constricted, when our lives feel constricted, it’s as though God becomes smaller. When our awareness of God atrophies, it’s as though God actually shrinks. Wow: this year, that teaching really speaks to me.

There’s a website called What Day Of March 2020, and if you go there, it will tell you that today is the 680th day of March 2020. As though time stopped when the pandemic began for us, and that month of March has lasted forever. It’s a joke, and it’s also not a joke.

Between the Delta variant and the Omicron variant, earlier this week there were more than a million new COVID cases. We’re facing our third pandemic Purim, our third pandemic Pesach. Hospitals everywhere are filling up again. We are all tired of this. And it is nowhere near over yet.

Right now the pandemic is our Mitzrayim. These are some tight straits. Maybe our hearts and souls feel constricted. Maybe we’re exhausted or overwhelmed or afraid. And when we are in tight straits it’s natural for our awareness of God, our sense of where we fit into the Mystery of the cosmos, our capacity to hope to become diminished. For us as for our ancestors, it’s as though God becomes smaller.

That could also be a description of what it feels like to grapple with depression. Awareness of God diminishes, capacity to hope diminishes, connectedness to what sustains us diminishes, sense of Mystery diminishes — it’s as though God becomes smaller. This teaching resonates on that level, too… though this isn’t just a time of personal Mitzrayim, it’s a time of communal Mitzrayim.

This week’s Torah portion, and this commentary from the Me’or Eynayim, arrive at just the right time. They’re here to remind us that even when we feel like we’re in galut in Mitzrayim, exiled in these tight straits, our spiritual task is to trust in yetziat Mitzrayim, to trust in the Exodus. Our work is to cultivate our capacity to feel in our bones that life will not always be like this. That’s a big leap of faith.

I think it’s a necessary one, if we want to get through this pandemic spiritually intact. Our work is to strengthen our da’at, our awareness of God. If the “G-word” doesn’t work for you, try: our awareness of hope, of love, of genuine justice. Because when we strengthen our da’at, we strengthen our capacity not only to trust that better days will come, but also to work toward those better days together.

Offered with endless gratitude to my hevre at Bayit, with whom I’m studying the Me’or Eynayim.

This is the d’varling that Rabbi Rachel offered at Shabbat morning services this week, cross-posted to Velveteen Rabbi.