The Jewish Story: Passover Interlude: The Exodus, A Story Beyond Belief

to ask what is the origin of stories says j.r.r tolkien is to ask what is the origin of language and of the mind we must be satisfied with the suit that set before us he says and not desire to see the bones of the ox out of which it has been boiled well I'm not looking for any ox bones or flesh but I am trying to tell a story that's rooted in its origin and reaching for the sky because I'm Rob Mike Feuer and this is the Jewish story pass-off interlude the exodus from Egypt a story beyond belief okay if you're anything like me then you're taking a break or maybe even right now you're knee-deep in cleaning fluid I just stopped scrubbing out my freezer in order to try to carve out a little bit of time to address what I see to be the essential element of this holy day that's right HESA is upon us and it's time to get ready now this is a clock that has a lot of names we call it highway route the festival freedom will come to that or even cog Aguila the celebration of our Redemption but to me the primary name of passage will always be hog emunah the holiday of well belief faith and munna is a notoriously hard word translate and when it comes to that faith and belief I believe that both of those words are lacking faith has connotations of an anti-intellectual leap into things we don't understand and that's a little bit contrary to the way in which I understand the world believed it's got just too much connotation of the rationalism of a world that I can reduce to my understanding and I'm not buying that either if you want to reconcile the two of them in the definition of munna then we might call munna the obligation to use my intellect right up to the point when it's no longer the proper tool for the job at hand it's knowing when to accept not only that I don't know but I can't know that's a functional definition of Emunah but it's not so connected to ET at me time that's actually more than munna of poram that blows the doors off the world as we know it preparing the way for the Emunah of pass on so if I wanted to find a definition for the amount of pass off I'd look for the first place on the tour that the words actually use I'm not talking about the route Aleph mem none but rather the word in Munna and you'll find it right toward the end of the story of the first appearance of a Malik the ante is real not surprising the people who are known for bringing Suffolk for bringing doubt into the world and it says they're a zombie Sorrell is battling on the plains below that moshus sat up up on the hill and he held up his hands and so long as his hands were up I'm Israel overcame and as soon as they dropped hasta Shalom the opposite so it says read a motion Vadim right his hands were heavy who Evan via scimitar Flavia shave aloud Ithaca Rock and he sat on it alone the whole time who ba-da-ba Jaime's Akkad our horse stood one in each side holding them up a yield of emunah odd beau Hamish in his hands were emunah until the Sun came down now we could go for hours on this one verse alone but for me what's fascinating really is that Emunah here seems to be a verb rather than a noun meaning he's got some sort of determination to keep those hands up and it's his determination despite the fact that it takes iron and core to help him that makes his hands and Munna and this gives me what I see to be the fully functional definition of Munna in particular how it relates to pass off and most deeply to our mitzvah' commandment to tell the story of the exodus because their word and Munna in my eyes really means a steadfast commitment to building my life into a vessel that can hold can hold my relationships can hold my understanding experience can hold God and if you've been listening to the Jewish story for even a little while then you know that's basically what we're trying to do I'm trying to tell a story of the past that can hold us in the present in a way in which we'll get to the future we want to live but what you may not know is that really my whole approach to storytelling centers around the Seder night and there's very few people out there who are listening this now who've probably been there but nonetheless you might have heard that things get a little wild in the for your house on Seder night all I'm trying to do is wake up the children I'm not talking about snoozing I'm talking about a deeper awareness because I'm just like you hoping and praying that my kids will care and you know I bless us all right now hope you bless me back we're gonna find a way this pass off to cut through those layers of Instagram induced cynicism and make a lasting impression for me the breakthrough moment in the potential of the Seder came a few years ago when my then ten-year-old daughter turned to me in the middle of the muggy in the middle of the section of the telling of the story of the Exodus and said ABBA is this really true just imagine the moment I mean she's a product of religious school education she doesn't have the liberal background that I've got and she's only 10 this is a time for what we call a muna shooter just the simple faith that yes the story were telling is true and that's exactly what I said yes it's all true and as you keep getting older we're gonna keep talking about what truth actually means and we've been talking about that here on the Jewish story for quite some time this is the distinction if you are a listener from way back that we may between through cities and the Torah between the Greek approach to truth in history and the torah's approach to memory and story remember that there is no word for history in the Hebrew language and when you look in Herodotus or in his intellectual air most particularly few cities what you see is that the basis of the Greek endeavor of history is give me the facts and I'll tell you the truth that the truth is subordinate to the facts which to most Westerners strike some is perfectly rational the problem is now that we're living in the postmodern era and people are talking about alternative facts and 8 News we've come to realize it's always the narrative that's driving the bus or as the tour's approach to the past is the exact opposite the Torah has a truth you can even call it the truth if you will but the key is the Torah is asserting its truth and then using facts insofar as they're necessary to understand I don't mean in a deliberately manipulative or underhanded fashion it's just that if I tell you a story which is true I give you enough fact in order that you can grasp it and that it's real to you but in this case it's the facts that are subordinate to the truth now that's not to say that the events of the Exodus didn't happen and it's certainly not to claim that they aren't true on the contrary our job on Seder night is to tell the truest story possible but it's not necessarily story that's going to be believed in the rational sense that we can pick it apart at origin and determine that each historical fact is indeed a fact rather it's a story that builds our family our family into a vessel that please God can hold God it's a story that can shape up people because we're telling it to our children who are a future of course they can shape of people that can tell a story of the past in the way that shapes their future and so what I want to do a little bit today is talk about how do you do that but it comes from the mitzvah of mughi the commandment actually tell this story to our children to our peers to ourselves how do we tell a story that's really beyond belief so the first step is that a story has to be the product of a chosen consciousness you know most of us live most of the time embedded in the story of our lives without ever even knowing that it is a story it's what we call stream of consciousness so thinking about my life there's only living now if you're a child or some sort of pure innocent there's a sweetness in power to this perspective you know there's something very holy and pure about people who are that Unseld 'fl where but it's only true provided the story that we're living is actually taking us where we want to go in my counseling work one of my favorite opening questions is so what's your story you'd be surprised a lot if not most people will say instinctively I don't have one but when I asked them whoa what did you want to speak to me about suddenly it comes spilling out and the great art form and it's something that you can do for those that you love as well is to simply listen well enough that when you say back to someone what it is they're speaking out they hear their own story so that's on a personal level and it's worthwhile to think about what are the stories that we live in victimhood entitlement a blessed life any way you cut it we've all got these narratives that are running the bus and we live some degree or another inside them now that's in the personal level on the national level national historic this is what I've called shot consciousness it's the consciousness that is skating across the surface of the story unaware even that there and in our history belongs their vote so the for file is a Vermeer talk and Yaakov and you see him particularly when you look at Abraham that God is repeatedly attempting to evoke consciousness it's trying to break him out of that stream and into a higher state of self-awareness which Abram can access the deeper power that his story actually provides brief benefit Aryan the covenant between the pieces is actually the critical turning point in this relationship between God and a Brahman right if you look in gray sheet 15-5 you'll see it says for your tail to Husa my god brought him outside outside his tent in the simple reading Rama Hobart Nash am i'ma who spoke her name's Holly sport um you look up into the heavens and count the Stars if you are able in Marlowe Kolia zurafa and he says Dharam this is how many children that you will have and hear the language but you sail to a hood sir he brought him I would decide he had him step outside themselves so much so the Midrash here says that he brought him outside of the whole halal ha-olam outside of the world so he could look from the outside in and Rashi tells us further this is because the rava had looked at the Stars and he thought he was locked into a life with no children and all here's God trying to wake Avraham up to the fact that oh you think you're living your life but you're actually part of an intergenerational saga now Avraham like most of us doesn't immediately feel empowered by this sudden self-awareness that he's part of an intergenerational shame because if my life is also a story in particular in particular one that lasts after I go and began before I arrived and then I actually lose agency how is it that I can be part of what seems like a deterministic playing out of a narrative in which I have nothing more than a bit part and not lose hope for life basically how does being self-aware having a chosen consciousness of stepping into my story help me know that I really matter and that's exactly what tom says back to God only a few came later when he says my own mother and I Elohim the madaky air Hashanah but even though God has promised him that he'll have children in that they'll inherit the land he says through what will I know that I'm going to inherit it and it's right after this after this moment of panic Rob Roblin realizes there's a big story going on and he doesn't know how to leverage it that God reveals to Abraham that awareness that we're living a story is only the first step because within this Marvel that we call creation and in particular in that jewel of human consciousness is the fact that we're not leaving out I don't script that's written in stone when I say story we're not just a character we're one of the authors and that's why God says Dharam okay you're not there yet yeah do a tada or you shall surely know key areas are about slow edits Lola your children are going to be strangers in a land which is not there of doom the Inuit Alabama or China and they will subjugate them and cause them to suffer for 400 years it's the slavery in Egypt that allows Avraham's moment of self-awareness of being pulled out into a narrative that will allow armies rail for generations to come to access this perspective from the outside on our own life and the critical knowledge that God gives him in that moment is that word in Yui Nino is not simple suffering as it's often translated because of course the bread in which we make the Mogollon which we tell the story of peso is lefm only the bread of affliction I'm talking about matzah it's also left I'm Shamim Allah forbid the volume it's the bread on which we are able to actually answer many things because this is why or this is as the morrow that great sage of the late 16th century says ëno ii is the particular type of suffering which strips us down to essential self and that's how the exposure to the deep narratives of our lives can actually help us gain agency there's so much of our time this spent I don't know tangle up in shallow narratives he-said she-said they think this about me this is important because I think that's important etc etc one of the hallmarks of the appearance of divine in our lives be it personal or national is it then that strips all that nonsense away and exposes the deep fundamental story that we're living I'm sure that if you take a minute to reflect on it you can get a sense of what that might be in your own life and by the way it's a great question for the Seder table if you want to bring people to self-awareness as part of this process not enough just to change things up and make the kids ask you hey why'd you do that and shock them out of the immediacy of stream-of-consciousness you want to make them aware that they have a story so you can ask people what's your core story right one of the ways of doing that in a very simple fashion is oddly enough if I gave you ten million dollars what would you do right now and what's that say about who you are that's on a personal level here avraham got a glimpse of the story that lay ahead for his children but it's actually Moshe in the real time of that story who's given the final instruction about how important it is to maintain this self-awareness that we're not just living we're living a story because right before the plague of the first born on the last moment of the Exodus God says to Moshe I accumulate them I mean the twelve chapters wrote if you want to look it up 26 line Val Kilmer Le Chambon ahem Marvo da da da femme right and it will be that when your children say to you what is this service to you from Adams El Paso food on I schepis aha but the eserver me trying to knock poet mitzraim Latino he'd still write it you'll say to him this is the Passover offering right it's Passover offering to God who passed over the houses of Vinay's so al in Egypt when he struck down the Egyptians and saved our own houses now on one hand it's a simple question here this hasn't happened yet why is Moshe who's basically packing up preparing the masses and the cordon passed off and getting all the people in order for the first Seder at night why is he being told be aware that someone's gonna ask you about this in generations to come and you have to have your answer framed I mean God is basically framing a conversation about Moshe telling the future about a past which still lies in the future for him digest of that from and what you're seeing is that there are certain experiences in a person's life and in the life of people that are just too important to be lived in the stream of consciousness if once we've been awoken to the fact that we're living an intergenerational reality that we are characters in a story which we are both acting out and which we're authoring then we have to know beyond the fact that we're in the moment that we're in the story you know it's probably why the Haggadah right after we begin to tell this story of the exodus actually adds in stories of other people telling their stories so this awareness is being called to consciousness to a chosen consciousness can express itself personally in our narrative awareness and nationally in this sense of the intergenerational project but it also begs the question of what topography underlies the stories that were living in our lives I love myth I know in the 21st century myths got a bad name although frankly in the postmodern era it's making a comeback the modern era it was just a lie I loved it because of the type of power it offers for integrating information experience understanding into a coherent whole well beyond any intellectual or rational theory and I also love it because of the sentiment expressed by Jean Cocteau he's a French writer artist at all he says I've always preferred myth to history because history consists of truths which turned to lies while myth consists of lies which turn into truths now what does he mean by that many things but to me in particular in our efforts to tell a story which lies beyond belief he's cluding us into the problem of basing our lives on history because history by definition lies in the past not only does it lie in the past but we want it to stay there a good historian doesn't muddy their picture of the past with their understandings of the present or the aspirations of the future to the degree that that's even possible right and so therefore one of the ways in which history is honest and true is by being completely alienated from the reality in which we live in which case any lesson you think you're deriving from history is a lie your project thing on it it may be an accurate analysis it may not but you've made an effort to keep history in the past so how could it possibly be true in the present a myth on the other hand which by the way may have at its core historical events but what's happened to those historical events is because they were so true because they were so important there's been a constant effort to adapt and keep their relevance to the time in which we live and so therefore a lot of the facts you ality may fade but they are indeed lies that turn into truths because they're expressive of a true reality today and part of the way in which we can understand mythic analysis of a story is to ask a simple question of what's the topography that underlies every stories in our own lives it means that though we believe were freewill actors and indeed it's important that we act as such nevertheless our choices are constrained by reality what's your picture situation I've been in plenty of times you're leaving your campsite for the day and now you can choose your destination and you can even pick out your travel route I'm gonna go down the ridgeline through the valley but every choice you make is going to be bounded by the topography which you're given and that's not even to speak of the weather and other conditions right this is the nature of topography the same is true in history I give you a great example the kingship in Israel you know I could trace you an arc which looks like in the Bible from David to destruction there are some noble Peaks here and there right by it's please you know the story of Yoshi ah who the last righteous King you'll see that God tries to tip him off to the fact that there's a topography which dominates his personal story he wants to make a revival he thinks in fact that he can be the Messiah but God's best promised that he can give him is that your eyes shall not see all the disaster which I will bring upon this place basically you're doing great kid but the story's already over so that's part of that topography but you want to go even deeper is that hmm if you ask someone in the 13th of the century is the story of kingship over in Israel so I think most people would say yes maybe maybe they were still holding on to that messianic ideal of kingship but I'll tell you something my great aunt Helene should be healthy and well grew up in a very religious shtetl type town in Eastern Europe before the war and she used to tell me that Oh Mike when we read the Bible boo mom Isis they were Miss whychus said we had a king there's a woman who grew up in a very religious environment she might have believed those stories to be true but they were boom boom Isis they were irrelevant fragments of the past because who could imagine that the story of kingship was actually going on I mean after all Bibi Malik Israel whatever you think of it we've got a pretty strong Kingdom going here so that's just an example in the Bible I'm getting diverted here what we really want to know is what's the topography of the Exodus story and how can it help us tell a story which isn't just about the past and factual but harnesses the power of mythic topography in order to tell a story beyond the leaf well fortunately here our sages tipped us off to what's probably the fundamental structure underlying the whole story of the Exodus and in particular the way in which were meant to tell it you look at the mission of South him chapter 10 mission afore you'll see many things there but in particular you'll see what this fundamental structure is meant to be it says Mikheil the good news with cyan but Sheva that we begin and disgrace we end in a praiseworthy state it's one of the ways to read it and for now that's what I want to focus on in case you're wondering well what's it mean to begin in disgrace and end in a praiseworthy state that's what the Kamara on 116a itself asks my big news what is this disgrace Rob says in the beginning we were idolaters but shrew argues with him and says in the beginning we were slaves which means for each of them the praiseworthy state the end will be different as well to rob of course it's going to be divine service as opposed idolatry and for Shmuel will be freedom this is the fundamental underlying hog Rafi of the excess in fact it's a holic obligation that we tell the story on this structure and the question is what does it teach us well I'll tell you what it teaches us Jesus how to fix all the damage done by Cecil B DeMille yes I'm sure you've seen it if you're above a certain age the Ten Commandments classic Charlton has then I know it's great I love it but there's one fundamental problem that that movie introduced into the consciousness of more than one generation that's what is Moses aim when he goes to Pharaoh let my people go but it's only half the story and it's not an accident to the Western audience for which that film was crafted PASOK is the festival of liberation not the festival of freedom and that's why they left off let my people go in order that they served me in the wilderness because in these will be the mills world once you get rid of the master an oppressor doesn't matter no one can tell you what to do anymore being free is having no one to tell you what to do if you want to sit on the beach and sip martinis until you get gout cousin to hate have a good time well that may be nice and that may be a type of freedom but it's not the peso story this is a story of freedom not liberation right we went from being slaves to Paro it's being servants of God and what people often do as a journey from slavery to freedom in actuality is a journey from servitude to service and that's what this topography is meant to teach us it's why actually instead of trying to resolve the argument between robbing Shmuel where there are disgusting beginnings were in idolatry or in slavery and whether ideal is freedom or divine service instead of trying to resolve that the Hagaddah actually weaves both their answers together because liberation from external pression is nothing to be disparaged having come from a free people child of free people it's a little bit hard to appreciate but nevertheless not a small thing however if freedom from is it followed pretty quickly by a conscious choice toward freedom of a choice whom to serve well then life doesn't lack for masters and always remember most them don't have our best interest at heart like Bob Dylan said everybody gotta serve somebody so you might as well choose the right one and the depth of this topography and its power in its ability to help us tell a story which really lies beyond belief is understanding the relationship between slavery and idolatry if you really want to go check out the Rambam third chapter of the laws of voters ah when he tells the story of Avraham and relates it the exodus from Egypt but for now think about it this way the slavery freedom pension is something that unites them is that both a slave and free men have to work life is work what distinguishes them is whom they work for a slaves efforts go to someone else and a free man's efforts nominally at least go to themself and the same is true when it comes to idolatry and divine service it's really clear when you say he Bravo Dada Dada is idolatry it's strange worship and I vote that Hashem is divine worship you're going to serve someone no matter what I vote Azara means you're serving something which is foreign to you and I vote that the Sham divine service means the service of a God whose will you have already internalized like I said in life you're gonna do the work and that means that will be either driven by external necessity or internal values and by constructing the story of the exodus on this topography what the Hagaddah does is allow us not only to take that self-awareness we gained by starting off everything different on this night but do you apply it to the question of okay this is a story about once upon a time but it's not an attempt to historicize to tell a story which is way over there its attempt to harness the power of myth underlying the story in order to make it relevant to my very cells because by telling the story on this topography we actually set ourselves free on this night and even if we're not physical slaves we still come far more free to choose whom we serve the story is our escort without it we are blind does the blind man own his escort no neither do we the story rather it is that story that owns us and directs us wise words from chin Oaxaca Bay that can teach us about the last element of how we tell a story beyond belief that I want to speak about today and that is really a question which is this story is so big it's a story about God's will unfolding in creation how on earth do we connect to the infinite until a story about something which is by definition bigger than we are well before I answer I want to give you a rough cooked steak on it because this is one of my favorite quotes from him he says in all of the codes regarding the highest knowledge there is no place to ask how do you know any knowledge which comes through investigation is only a means to arrive at this highest knowledge which bubbles up from within the deepest depths of the soul and the means most fit for achieving this transcendent quality is cleaving to God with every power now it's beautiful but easier said than done what he just said is that you have to tell a story which comes from inside you from that place which is connected to the infinite and sees itself as giving voice to something so much bigger and once again Hagaddah is here to help us first just to get it straight we're called to consciousness that our lives are a story we break that stream of consciousness unawareness through all the things that make this a different night and then with that self-awareness awakened and the agency that it provides us we harness the present in order to reach the past right we delve into the topography that mythic architecture that underlies a story of Once Upon a Time in order to make it relevant to each of us around the table but it's not enough because this is not just a human story of liberation it's a defined story of unfolding will and at a certain point present awareness is overtaken by the telling of past consciousness we have the opportunity to fulfill robin gama's command of the Mishnah when he says in each and every generation a person must view themself as though they personally left Egypt as it says and you shall tell your son on that day saying it is because of this which or did for me when I came forth out of Egypt now what exactly does it look like to reach the point on Seder night when I see myself as actually coming out of Egypt when I let the wave of the past and all its powerful topography break over that awakened consciousness in the present and I let myself sing as I move out of the narrow places that bind my story there's no more powerful way of cleaving to God than by singing a song of joy just like the children of Israel when we came through the Red Sea and the Midrash says you know that the first person who ever said the phrase hallelu of their Shem give praise or use servants of God was actually Paro it was Pharaoh that when he saw me swear leaving he said he'll power over talk Muhammed meter says power began to cry out and say the Shelf I hate the mother died right in the past you avid I you were my servants of Allah bottom been a horn but now you're free Harriett em parachute tumhari em of a doubt shall college borrow who they behold you are on your own recognizance behold you are the servants of God notice that the two are the same serega metemma holo-shed t'aime Avada you must give praise and thanks because you are his servant right but this is the only way to give voice to that powerful expansive force within the story where the infinite finds expression in the finite because then the telling comes the end but the story isn't over and lo and behold in the Seder itself where do we find ourselves at the end of howl well we find ourselves in that beautiful place of the Shahana ha ha ha the usual I'm Bhushan I'm happy new yeah in the coming year let it be in the rebuilt Jerusalem the moment of near saw that transcendent state of knowing but I haven't just woken myself up to the fact that we're in a story and managed by making it a different night hopefully to do so for those around me as well and I haven't just delved in to the mythic architecture the DePauw which underlies our story of the past in order to make it eternally relevant for me in the present I've also opened my eyes in my heart to sing a new song about what the world's really gonna be like when everybody's there on Mount Zion in the coming year let it be soon let it be now and I don't wish you all I hope you wish me back that this should be a holy a happy a kosher and a redemptive pass-off filled with the Munna and we should all merit to tell a story that's beyond belief so I just want to thank a few people want to thank everybody that gives the hard-earned money for helping to make this show happen to keep it free and widely available and I want to ask you to join them right now it's a good time to give people you can go to my website Jewish story that CEO and the upper right hand corner you'll see a button that says it be a patron you can click on through to give a little bit of her podcast for you have any questions you time it Rob Mike Feuer at gmail.com you can find me at Jewish story podcast on Facebook and even the Jewish story on Twitter believe it or not I want to thank the Land of Israel Network that's the Land of Israel calm for creating a platform that allows me to reach so many amazing people I want to thank Hard Day's Institute var des not Oregon il for building an educational institution it gives me the privilege of teaching so many wonderful Jews and I want to thank you for listening I'm not my choir and did