Lessons Learned

In this week’s portion, the Zohar makes an interesting point about the plagues that occurred in Egypt: that Pharaoh seems to forget about each plague after things return to normal. All the water turns to blood (plague number one), but as soon as it has reverted back to water, Pharaoh forgets what happened. Frogs (plague number two) infest the land, but as soon as they’re gone, Pharaoh forgets that they were ever there. And so on and so forth.

There are seven plagues recounted in this week’s reading. Now my question is this: If somebody slapped you seven times, would you really not remember?

Thankfully, the Zohar clarifies the situation: It wasn’t that Pharaoh forgot; it was simply that he reverted back to the consciousness he had before that particular plague occurred, a phenomenon that happens to all of us from time to time.

Consider this: How many times have we made a mistake and been whacked by the universe in one way or another, only to forget about it once the chaos disappears? We go through the same scenarios time and time again, and each time an issue repeats itself, we smack our forehead and say, “Darn it, I knew I shouldn’t have gone there. I knew that it was wrong.”

The truth is that unless we find a way free or elevate ourselves out of our patterns, we will repeatedly make the same mistakes. If we don’t bring ourselves to a higher spiritual level, we are going to go through the same mill over and over again until we come to a place of willingness to change. Thankfully, from that powerful place of willingness, we have spiritual tools to help us move forward on our path to become the best person we can be.