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“Our ego is the main cause which fragments us from our true being, namely the Lightforce.”
– Kabbalist Rav Berg
OUT OF EGYPT
At the heart of spirituality is the battle to overcome the dominance of the ego mind. Kabbalistically, there are windows of opportunity that help us separate from the ego, to see life without the normal interference of a limited consciousness. Peering through these windows helps us take dramatic leaps forward in our personal growth. These windows are weekly (Shabbat); monthly (New Moon), and yearly (Holidays.)
Kabbalistically, these special days are opportunities to get out of the physical world and into the spiritual. If we didn¹t have them, the world would be too much for us to handle. We need these spiritual connections to give us the power to carve out a joyful immortal destiny.
Pesach is the only time of year that we get the key to strip away our faulty belief systems—the robotic ways of our ego’s thinking that prevent us from achieving our truest potential. Pesach is about coming out of the darkness of slavery to the things, ideas, and people that hold us back.
Traditionally, this slavery has been depicted as brutally hard work under slashing whips, with an abundance of blood, sweat, and tears. The ancient Kabbalists, however, brought to light some interesting facts that have largely been overlooked by traditionalists.
On the literal level, the Pesach story tells us that the Israelites were in bondage in Egypt for 400 years. They were slaves and the sons of slaves—captives of the hard-hearted Pharaoh, ruler of Egypt.
Then there came a great leader named Moses. On a mission from God, Moses won freedom for his people. He then led them on a long and arduous journey, including that famous detour through the Red Sea. Eventually they arrived at Mount Sinai, and had a date with destiny. The burning bush and the Bible, the book that truly deserves the appellation, “best-selling.”
But here's the interesting part: it is a little known fact that when the Israelites finally taste freedom for the first time in centuries, they begin whining and complaining the moment it gets a little hot and dry in the desert. They even beg Moses to take them back to Egypt!
Are we to believe the Israelites actually had it pretty good in Egypt?
Was life in the desert worse than slavery in Egypt?
Something isn't right here. The literal story doesn't make sense. Why, year after year, are we supposed to recount this questionable story at the holiday known as Pesach?
UNRAVELING THE CODE
The Ari revealed that the entire biblical story is a code.
Egypt is a code word for the human ego.
Egypt is a metaphor for humanity's incessantly reactive, self-seeking nature.
Egypt is any aspect of our nature that controls us.
It's the oldest master-slave relationship in Creation. And it takes many forms:
- We're imprisoned by the ego-based aspects of our material existence.
- We're held in bondage by our reactive whims and egocentric desires.
- We're enslaved by our reckless impulses.
- We're held captive by our careers, jobs, and shallow relationships.
- We're prisoners to other people's perceptions of us.
- We're incarcerated by our ego's need for other people's acceptance.
- We're hostages to our constant need to outdo and one-up our friends.
Our ego is our true taskmaster—and the ego is so good at doing its job, most of us don't even realize we are in bondage.
ACCOUNTABILITY
As long as they were slaves in Egypt, the Israelites were not accountable or responsible for their own lives. They could remain victims. If any chaos fell upon them, they did not have to accept blame. It's much easier to be a victim—a slave—than to accept responsibility for life's problems.
This victim mindset was the real slavery in Egypt. The exodus of the Israelites led to genuine freedom and control over their own fate. But with freedom comes responsibility, and that was an uncomfortable prospect. This is the spiritual meaning behind their sudden complaints, and their desire to return to Egypt. It was much easier for the Israelites to be slaves and victims, and to blame everything on the Egyptians. That way, events were simply "beyond our control."
But the reality is this: No event is beyond our control. But our reactive nature blinds us from this freedom and this responsibility. All of a sudden, we are challenged to look in the mirror and blame ourselves for the chaos and hardship that befalls us.
But if we can accept this responsibility, we can have the power of freedom and control over the cosmos in the palm of our hand.
MORE CODES
The rites and rituals connected to Pesach are the cables by which spiritual current reaches our lives. Let's examine the inner spiritual significance behind some of the more common concepts of Pesach.
ABSTAINING FROM BREAD
“Most importantly, be very careful during the days of Pesach to eat the Maztah which is therapeutic food.” - Letter from Rav Brandwein to Rav Berg
During the Eight Days of Passover, bread is replaced by Matzah.
The Kabbalists teach us that bread is an all-powerful tool. Bread is like an antenna for transmitting spiritual energy—hence its use in the rituals of so many religions.
Kabbalah teaches that bread is also linked metaphysically to the human ego. Just as bread has the power to expand and rise, our ego has the ability to expand and motivate us to rise to great heights in the material world.
BREAD WITHOUT EGO
Matzah is like bread without ego: bread whose selfish nature has been shut down. By eating Matzah with the proper Kabbalistic meditation and intent, we receive the power to shut down our own ego. In this way, we can free ourselves from slavery and rise to great spiritual heights.
LIGHT SPEED
Bread also attracts overwhelming energy into the home. For this reason, not even one crumb is permitted during Pesach, when this energy infusion reaches ultra-high levels.
Consider this example: You're driving a car at 30 mph. If you roll down the window, the air-pressure change is minimal. You can still control the vehicle without any trouble. But if you're flying in a Concorde jet faster than the speed of sound, the tiniest crack in a window will set the plane careening out of control. Pesach is like flying at the speed of light—that's how intense the Light of freedom is. Even the tiniest speck of bread in your system will send you and your reactive behavior on a wild collision course with chaos throughout the year.
TEN PLAGUES
Scientists and Kabbalists agree that reality consists of ten dimensions, each of which is expressed in our own spiritual make-up. In other words, our ego and our dark impulses encompass ten grades of negativity.
The biblical story speaks of Ten Plagues that were unleashed upon Egypt. The ancient Kabbalah explained that this really means that ten blasts of energy were required to wipe out the ten levels of negativity that dwell within our human nature. Once the ten levels are removed, we achieve genuine freedom from the ego and the self.
TIME CODE
According to the Kabbalah calendar, the night of Pesach opens a unique window of opportunity in the universe. The prison door is suddenly unlocked. We have the chance to escape and flee the prison of our ego, our fear, and our insecurities.
This opening was actually created some 3,300 years ago when the Israelites were freed from slavery on this very same date.
The freedom that appeared in Egypt was for one purpose—to create a reservoir of energy for all future generations, so that we could access the power of freedom in our own lives.
Modern physics tells us that energy never dissipates. The same spiritual energy of freedom returns every year on Pesach night.
Time is like a revolving wheel. The freedom that became available 3,000 years ago in Egypt comes around again on this exact date. Events do not pass us by like a one-way freight train. We move through the wheel of time as it spins, revisiting the same moments each year. The only things that change are the "set decorations" that give us the illusion of a new year and a different life.
THE FIFTEENTH OF ARIES
According to kabbalistic astrology, Aries is the first sign of the Zodiac, the father of all the months of the year. The sign of Aries is represented by the ram, considered a holy animal by the ancient Egyptians. The Egyptians didn’t worship the animal itself, but the spiritual energy it represents. They call it the God of Ra. It is no coincidence that the name Ra is also the initials of the Aramaic words for selfish desire (ratzon atzeret.)
During the holiday of Pesach we are given the opportunity to activate restriction over our desire to receive for the self-alone. We reveal the positive side of Aries - the power of rejuvenation - to inject order and true freedom into our lives.
THE SEDER
All the historic spiritual actions of Pesach served a purpose designed to benefit our life today. They created a reservoir and bank of spiritual energy that future generations could tap for their own battles with ego. Therein lies the purpose of the seder (the feast of Pesach known as the order).
The items that appear on the Seder Plate, when charged with the energy of Pesach become highly sophisticated instruments that connect us to various levels of the Ten Sfirot - the Kabbalistic Tree of Life.
The seder plate is a microcosm of our life and the physical and spiritual world. We are the plate and the items on it correlate to the 10 Sfirot and the 10 blasts of energy that struck our world back in Egypt. Each component on the seder plate is a specific tool and instrument that allow us to manipulate these 10 spiritual forces.
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