This week we begin to read the story of our nation in slavery. We experience our descent into Egypt, both nationally and personally, in the darkest month of the year, when the nights are longest, and the days are shortest. Rav Shapiro tells us that this is our opportunity to allow ourselves to descend together with our nation into Egypt, and to examine and experience the galut that we live in. Why would we want to do that? Because it also gives us the opportunity to continue walking with our nation into redemption.

Sefer Shemot begins with the names and the number of the Jews who came into Egypt. Rashi here tells us we are like the stars, which are brought out by name and number.  It’s an interesting way to begin the story of a nation that our prophets tell us is innumerable, uncountable (Hosea 2:1). Like the stars we have both have names and numbers and are also uncountable. This duality, explains Rav Shapiro, is the essence of who we are as a people, who we are as individuals, and the secret to our ability to survive in galut.

To be countable means to be part of the natural world, because everything in the natural world can be counted. And yet, hidden within the concept of counting is a connection to something more. Mispar, the Hebrew word for number, is connected to the word sippur, to talk or to narrate. When we speak, and most especially when we give something a name, we accomplish two things simultaneously, we both limit and reveal. To understand this, think of a person. That person has a name, and that name is limited. It identifies them, but it does not even begin to reveal the essence of who they are. Nevertheless, we need that name. Through their name, we can get to know them, and open up the space and the ability to learn about the essence that is hidden within. The infinite is placed into the finite so that it can be grasped.  The purpose of a name or a number is to portray that which is beyond it. When it is perceived correctly, it reveals its limitless roots.

We went into Egypt by name and by number. But to the Egyptians that had an entirely different meaning than it has to us. Mitzrayim is the place of meitzarim, boundaries and limitations. It is a place that is self-contained, a place that waters itself from the Nile and never has to look up to the heavens for rain. Mitzrayim has the same gematria as mispar, number, but it has the most limited understanding of mispar. In Mitzrayim, the things that we can count are not connected to anything higher. All of existence is limited to our perception of it. Since our awareness is everything, and we make our own awareness, then we make reality as well. This is how Pharoah could consider himself a god.

The letters of Pharoah’s name can be rearranged to make the Hebrew word ha’orpeh, the back of the neck. Pharoah was as stubborn as the most stiff-necked of people. But there is also a deep idea hiding here. There are two ways our thoughts and souls are expressed in our bodies, two ways our minds are expressed to the outside world. The first is through the face and the mouth, where the intelligence of our brain is revealed. The second is through the spine, down the back of the neck, where our brain gives instructions for the actions of the entire body. When the brain affects the body through the back of the neck, its influence can not be openly seen. It’s hidden. This is the way that Pharoah, and Mitzrayim, received sustenance from above, in such a way that the influence was hidden, and the spiritual aspect could be lost. The lower world was disconnected from its source.

This was our oppression in Egypt. We were forced into a boundary that was too small for our true state. The original greatness of man was originally (Chagigah 12a) from one end of the world to the other. Mizrayim was a place of meitzar-yam, where the sea was constrained. The expansiveness of life, as expressed by the expansiveness of the sea, was forced into constraining borders. We were a shadow of our true selves.  

Tevet is the month when we feel this. On the 8^th of Tevet, the Torah, with its infinite meaning, was translated and constrained to fit into the perceptions of the Greek language. On the 9^th of Tevet, Ezra HaSofer died, and nevuah was lost. We lost our direct connection to the expansiveness of the higher worlds. And on the 10^th of Tevet Jerusalem, the city that connects the higher and lower world, was put under siege. This is the month, as we fast, as we read the beginning of the book of Shemot, that we can begin to appreciate that we are living in a constricted state. We only grasp a sliver of what we are and what reality is. It can be a depressing thought. However, that realization, that we are standing in exile, is our first moment of moving toward redemption. The first step toward redemption is the recognition of the greatness of man.

Rambam teaches (Hilchot Melachim 11:1) that anyone who does not wait for the arrival of Moshiach is a denier of the prophets and of the Torah and Moshe Rabbeinu. This is a pretty strong description. We are not talking about someone who denies Moshiach, but just of someone who does not wait for him. Why? Because if we are not waiting for Moshiach, that means that we are okay with the world the way it is. As Rav Shapiro says, “A world without the revelation of G-d’s glory is also feasible to him and he can live there. To consider such a world as reality is the simplest form of denial. (p.597)”

Maharal (Netzach Yisrael 29) explains that we cannot receive anything unless we have space to receive it. Bereisheit Rabbah (98:14) tells us that everything depends on our hope and on our yearning. All the best things come through hope. The extent of what we can receive from the higher realm is determined by what we want, what we yearn for. Our space, our vessel, to receive is hope. If we find ourselves in exile, we can know that we are in the perfect place to merit redemption because the greatest distance is what causes the greatest yearning.

Redemption is liberation from a system, from the order of things as they are. This is the place where our Fathers stood. The story of Shemot is the story of returning, as a nation, to the place of our Fathers. And the place of our Fathers is the place of prayer. What they instituted, what they left for us, is our prayers. Prayer is the path to redemption.  The Gemara tells us (Berachot 9b), “Who is a man of the world to come? He who juxtaposes redemption to prayer.”

What the fathers created was that ability to break out of the cycle of nature, to create new beginnings even within the natural order of life.  When we stand in prayer, or at least remain in place, we are stopping the forward stride, the surge of continuation of the natural world. We divorce ourselves form the entire system of the world to stand still in front of the Creator. And we say a bracha. A bracha is a prayer for continuation. We stand before Hashem, and we enumerate all that we have and all that we need, and recognize that its continuation, and our continuation, is not something that comes automatically. Everything needs to be renewed. Everything needs to exist in contact with its higher source. We are not on autopilot alone in this world. As the clock turns, we perceive each change in time as something new, and that understanding compels us to pray. In that moment, when we stop and remember our roots, we liberate ourselves from the relentless cycle of nature. We touch the place of our fathers. And we become people of the world to come.