Finding lasting change with the forging of a new, expanded identity.
As we celebrate the holiday of redemption this week, there is much we can learn from the generation that left Mitzrayim after two centuries of oppression and slavery about the true meaning of redemption. You may recall that the generation that left Mitzrayim — those who directly witnessed the miracles of the plagues and sea — was not the same generation that entered the Land of Israel. After the cheit of the meraglim, the medrash tells us that each year over the 40 years spent wandering in the desert, the generation that left Egypt dug their own graves each year on Tisha B’av, and did not enter the Promised Land. The commentaries Ibn Ezra and Nechama Liebowitz elucidate that although the Exodus brought forth the birth of the new nation of am Yisrael, the “generation of the wilderness,” even after leaving Egypt, was unable to fully let go of their identity as slaves. Without a new, expanded identity, lasting change was not possible, and they never experienced what it means to truly be free.
Many of us strive to make lasting change in our daily lives, whether it be in our relationships, our physical bodies, our finances or our happiness and mental states. What we may not realize is that in order to create lasting change in any of these areas, there needs to be an identity shift, or a new expanded identity.
Unfortunately, behaviors and goals alone are not enough to make change permanent, because the strongest force in the human personality is the need to stay consistent with how we define ourselves. For example, if we have a goal to lose weight but we see ourselves as someone who is overweight, our identity will triumph every time, even if it is an identity that does not serve us. If we believe we are something, that belief of who we are will color our behavior for the rest of our lives.
The month of Nissan, during which Pesach falls, is commonly referred to as the month of redemption. In the Gemara it states, “In Nissan they were redeemed, in Nissan they will be redeemed” (Rosh Hashanah 11a). And yet, despite the wondrous miracles the redeemed Jews witnessed in Mitzrayim and during the Exodus itself, their intense faith is proven to be transient. Twentieth-century Biblical scholar Nechama Liebowitz explains that their skepticism — the residuals of their 200-year identity as slaves — imprison them even as they are on the brink of freedom. The “generation of the wilderness’’ suffered from a slave complex cultivated during centuries of Egyptian bondage: Having lived their entire lives as slaves to their Egyptian masters, the Jewish people could not see beyond this and were imprisoned by their subconscious subservience, despite no longer being physically enslaved in Egypt.
The pesukim relate that upon seeing Pharoah and his chariots in pursuit, the Jewish people froze in fear and cried out to Moshe, “Was it for want of graves in Egypt that you brought us to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us, taking us out of Egypt? Is this not the very thing we told you in Egypt, saying, ‘Let us be, and we will serve the Egyptians, for it is better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness’?” (Shemot 14:11-12). In his commentary on these verses, Ibn Ezra explains that the reason why a group of 600,000 young and strong men shrank back in fear of their pursuers was because they were psychologically incapable of defending themselves against the very people who had been their owners and masters for centuries. The Jews were stuck in their “slave mentality,” just as we may be stuck with our identities.
Ibn Ezra’s psychological insight extends beyond this one interaction with the Egyptians. The wilderness generation’s slave-mentality influences their wanderings in the desert, preventing them from fighting against the Egyptians and Amalek, as well as causing them to complain constantly for food and water and commit the sin of the meraglim, barring them from entering Eretz Yisrael. This was not a generation with the willpower needed to fight against the Canaanim and conquer the land of Israel. For this reason, Ibn Ezra states, the current generation would die during their 40-year wanderings in the desert, during which time a new generation, one that was not born into slavery and therefore free from the psychological bondage of slavery, would be raised and ready to conquer the land of Canaan.
In order for the generation of the wilderness to have been able to enter the land of Israel, a paradigm shift of identity from slavery to freedom was needed. Unfortunately, despite their strong emunah in God, which enabled them to follow Moshe into the desert, and their desire to enter the Promised Land, the wilderness generation was ultimately unable to escape their slave identity. They were forever imprisoned by it, despite being physically freed from their Egyptian slave owners.
The lesson of the generation of the wilderness still applies today. We each hold identities and beliefs that inhibit us from making lasting change. By investigating them this Pesach, we can forge new identities that will set us free and bring us the quality of life we desire. Personally, I have shaped, formed and expanded many new identities for myself, including my identity as a single mother. My identity has shifted from believing that a good mother must be a martyr (which does not serve us) to believing and identifying that a good mother means being a (role) model.
There is a price we pay for living to satisfy who we believe we “should be.” For the wilderness generation, the cost of being locked into their slave identity was dying in the desert. It is easy to blame external circumstances, such as COVID-19, change or uncertainty, challenging relationships, work and more for our struggles. But ultimately, it is up to us to create a new identity and belief for ourselves, set increased standards and create rituals to protect our new identities so that we can become who we believe we really are.
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