8/27/2023 0 Comments Imagine a bible with no moses![]() ![]() The plagues brought on by Pharaoh’s stubborn resistance to freeing the Hebrews are our plagues. Moses represents the part of the mind that is and has always been in full, direct connection with God and Spirit-what I call the Moses-mind. Pharaoh represents the part of the mind that sees itself as separate from God and Spirit: the limited ego-mind. They are archetypes that portray opposing aspects of the human mind in its relationship to Spirit. Its two central characters-Pharaoh and Moses-are not just historical figures, not just characters in a biblical drama. It is an allegorical portrait of the human mind. So, what is this midrash? How can we use it to bring forth the true colors of Exodus? We start with the understanding that Exodus is far more than just a simple story about winning freedom. ![]() Viewed through the lens of this incisive new midrash, Exodus leaps into blazing color as a model for the spiritual journey itself-a roadmap for our own passage out of bondage and into freedom. This is not mere metaphor, nor is it hyperbole. We’re enjoined to celebrate as if God had led us personally from bondage in Egypt. As the Passover Haggadah makes abundantly clear, the story of Moses and Pharaoh applies to all of us, now, in the present tense. It simultaneously deepens our relationship to Judaism by making Exodus personally relevant. It broadens our understanding of Judaism by linking it with the mystical quest at the heart of all the worlds’ great religious traditions, both Eastern and Western. ![]() I would like to share a new and quite radical midrash regarding the story of Exodus, one that I have found extremely powerful. Here, Moses pleads with Israel to follow him. We are encouraged to abandon our ego (Pharaoh), and instead, open ourselves to Spirit (Moses). By applying different glosses, different lenses, to the old, time-worn Bible tales, we can find in them startling new layers of meaning-like placing a dull rock under a black light to reveal luminous veins of color otherwise hidden to the eye. Rather, midrashic interpretation reflects an ongoing attempt to unearth the hidden truth latent in scripture, to peel away the corrosive patina accumulated over many years of reading with eyes clouded by convention, and reveal the pure shining essence of divine wisdom. (To debate the number of angels crowded atop the head of a pin is not midrash.) Midrash is not purely a scholarly endeavor, because its goal is not scholarship per se. However, midrash is not simply the act of clarifying difficult Biblical passages or wrestling with abstruse questions that most of us would find utterly irrelevant. Since the fall of the second temple in 70 C.E., such interpretation has gone by the name of midrash. The interpretation of the Bible and its stories is a time-honored tradition in Judaism, one that dates back over two millennia. ![]()
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