Leaving Egypt and Seeing Our Fullest Selves --A Passover Message
from Rabbi Myriam Klotz and Diane Bloomfield
Rabbi Myriam Klotz and Diane Bloomfield are long-time teachers at Isabella Freedman. We are delighted to announce that the third cohort of their Yoga and Jewish Spirituality Teacher Training Program begins this summer. (Several other two-year training programs are also starting this summer, including the Davennen' Leadership Training Institute and the Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute. We are also offering one-week introductory courses to training programs in Embodied Spirituality and Lev Shomea: Spiritual Direction.)
Passover begins this year on the evening of Monday, March 29. On that night, we read from the Haggadah: “In every generation, a person must see himself or herself as if he or she has left Egypt.” There are many ways to understand this statement, and we’d like to offer one that, informed by Jewish tradition, extends an invitation to be right here, right now, consciously in your own body.
By changing the phrasing of this sentence, which the sages often do when interpreting Jewish texts, the statement reads: “In every generation, a person is obligated to see himself or herself as if he or she has left Egypt.” With this reading, the obligation upon every person is one of self-awareness. You are obligated to see yourself. When you see yourself, it is as if you have left Egypt.
Why is self-awareness like leaving Egypt? Torah teaches: “And G-d creates the human being in G-d’s image.” (Genesis 1:27) Since you are created in the image of G-d, you are a reflection of G-d in the world. When you see yourself, you are seeing G-d’s reflection. And what is Egypt? According to the Kabbalah, Egypt is a metaphor for constricted consciousness. (The Hebrew for Egypt, Mitzrayim, literally means “from the narrow places.”
A Great Light
The mystics teach that since G-d is Infinite, G-d cannot come into the world directly. The greatness of G-d would leave no room for the world. So, G-d enters the world in the form of a great light in which one sees from the beginning of the world to its end, both in space and time. This is the mystical, space-time light of expanded consciousness. It permeates all of creation, including you and me. Since you are a reflection of G-d, when you see yourself, you enter the world of expanded consciousness. You have left Egypt.
In the work of Yoga and Jewish Spirituality, we ground such mystical insights in our bodies. Avodah b’gashmiut, or "spiritual practice through the physical world," has been an important part of Jewish mysticism for generations. Through Yoga and Jewish Spirituality, we utilize the practice of yoga postures to help us deepen our awareness of being in a physical body that is a mirror of nothing other than the Infinite G-d. It is this grounded integration of spiritual teachings through a body-based practice that helps us live our daily lives with intention, meaning and purpose, bringing spiritual consciousness to the most seemingly mundane physical actions in any given moment.
Preparing to leave Egypt this year in your own life
Whenever we see ourselves more clearly—as we truly are in the likeness of God’s Infinite and Endless Light—we expand: We leave constricted consciousness. In Hebrew, one word for light is “Or,” spelled aleph-vav-reysh. The word Or in Hebrew, sounding just like this word for “light” but spelled differently, means “skin” (ayin-vav-reysh). Skin: the largest organ of the body; or Light: the largest, most infinite energy of the Divine? Which is it? Well, it is both, actually! Both types of Or cover our bodies. When we can expand our awareness to realize that both physical skin and light cloak our consciousness in this world, we see ourselves more fully.
Yoga and Expanded Consciousness
When we practice yoga, it is often not so long before we realize how malleable and full of potential we are. We tap into the expanded consciousness that exists in each part of the body. We see how much power exists through the breath, through the energy that pulses through the flesh and bones of our gashmiut, our physicality. As we learn to move in our ‘skin’ with greater consciousness of the ‘light’ that permeates every cell of the body, the quality of our embodiment can expand and open to a more vast knowing and expressing of the divine freedom that is ours as embodied beings who mirror the limitless Divine. Each posture can become another opportunity to feel the Divine light coursing through our skin freely and fully.
Miracles such as the parting of the Red Sea may be those we read about in the Haggadah. Miracles of bodies healing, of joy in the expression of a teaching from the Torah found through the power of a yoga pose, and of love more freely received and shared, happen each day as we practice this work. You are invited to join us!
Happy Passover – Chag Sameah!
Myriam Klotz and Diane Bloomfield
No comments:
Post a Comment