From Cantor Lee
Once again the issue of anger was coming to my awareness so I knew to pay attention. It seemed as though I was getting a re-education, a reminder, the past few weeks about the various aspects of anger. This morning it came from my neighbor. She was telling me how her autistic teenager was thriving in a yoga class offered at his high school. This amazing program was not only helping the autistic and other special needs teens but the “regular” students as well.
“But I am so ___ angry!” As she began to yell I watched her whole demeanor change. She went on to tell me how a special yoga program was being scheduled on World Autism Awareness Day, April 2nd, but none of the autistic children would be able to attend as it was during the morning when they were all involved in community work programs. “They are going to ____ hear from me! There is no way this program is not going to include the autistic community!” I thought, I am glad I won’t be the person on the phone when she calls! “But they didn’t do this maliciously, did they? They just didn’t realize…” She cut me off and screamed “they just didn’t think! They never think! I am an advocate for my child and this program will be changed!” I replied, “yes, you have come to earth to do just that, advocate for your child.” She answered, “exactly and it might kill me in the meantime!”
I continued on my walk and sent Light to the situation and gratitude that I didn’t absorb any of her anger as I had a couple of weeks beforehand when I had witnessed an exchange between a mother and her child in my classroom . As I watched the energy of the anger go straight from the mother’s eyes into the child’s eyes, the child actually recoiled! I have absolutely no judgment about this, there were plenty of times I became angry with my own children as they were growing up! But I didn’t realize at the time that this anger also affected me. With my next class of students, I lost my temper which is very much out of character for me. Fortunately I caught myself in the middle of it and apologized to the class. I realized later that I had absorbed the earlier energy of anger. As an empath, I have had to learn how to not absorb other people’s emotions but it still sometimes happens.
Over the next few weeks, I had dreams of anger, heard other people’s stories of anger and even noticed that the Torah portions deal with anger. Okay, so what is the meaning, the blessing in all of this, I wondered? And then I understood that this time leading up to Passover is an opportunity for us to let go of anything that is still keeping us angry, and sometimes the issues are buried so deeply within us, we aren’t even aware of them! Passover is a holiday of freedom, but we have to work on staying free!
I meditated and asked to see any people or issues with which I am still carrying anger and asked that they be taken from my energy field. I did this a few times and do feel Lighter! My now lighter energy field will also affect others connected to me and that is definitely a blessing!
May we all be blessed with freedom this Passover!
From Rabbi David aka The Reb
When Jacob’s family, 75 members strong left for Egypt to the fertile land of Goshen, they went to meet their beloved Joseph, now a powerful leader only second in command to the Pharaoh, in order to ride out the famine in Canaan. They could have returned back to their home land once the famine was over they did not. After all their brother was the ruler of the land.
The members of the family could have returned to Canaan once Joseph died some 40 years or so. There was no reason to stay any more. They still did not. We know the rest of the story of course.
From a bird’s eye view we can conclude that the reason for staying was a Divine Will to create a yearning and struggle for freedom among the Hebrew slaves a few centuries later. But whose struggle was it?
When Moses first returned to Egypt and announced that he will free the slaves the Hebrews ridiculed him as a strange dreamer. Yet they cried out to G-D to save them from their suffering. A great struggle for freedom ensued. But was it really a human struggle for freedom? Was it one nation’s war against tyranny and enslavement? Remember that the Israelites were totally passive in their bid for freedom as if it wasn’t their fight. In fact, as the Torah demonstrates several times later on in the desert, some of them were quite content remaining slaves.
This is in fact a story of a Divine fight for human freedom but not a human struggle.
So let me understand this. The Old Mighty makes the Hebrews stay in Egypt after the death of Joseph with no good reason, then causes them to become slaves and then fights the pharaoh to free them. What a strange sequence of events!
When G-D created humans he got directly involved in the act. He did not command it to happen like he did for all other animals . Rather, he himself physically made a human shape from the dirt of the earth and breathed life into it. The human being is so close to Godliness that G-D felt the need to make Adam with his “Bare hands”
The idea that the Passover freedom struggle is a Divine war against oppression for the sake of mankind is the same as the idea of human creation. When Moses finally yanked the Israelites out of Pharaoh’s grip, the message to mankind through the Hebrews and us, their descendants was profound, that human freedom is our fundamental right. G-d implanted this within us through the ancient struggle with a tyrant Pharaoh. No one can take it away from us. It is basic to our existence just as the Divine physical intervention in our creation is basic to who we are.
Passover is the time when we remember that the Light of Freedom and Decency was put in the Jewish heart and soul some 3,300 years ago to watch over and keep alive in a world that would despise freedom for many centuries to come.
We are still carrying it in our hearts. Our children inherit it from us to keep it safe in their hearts until such time that peace and freedom will no longer be in our prayers but in our world.
May it be so this Passover!
