Weekly Torah Portion

Have you ever wondered why people stay for years in dead-end jobs they hate instead of pivoting and starting something they enjoy that provides satisfaction? Or why others may tolerate staying in a state of ill health rather than taking the necessary steps to live a healthy life?

There are so many situations in which people choose the path of least resistance rather than face the “pain” and discomfort of changing their lives for the better. We may even catch ourselves falling into this trend sometimes. Whether in our relationships, health, finances, or life in general, we might even yearn for a brighter future and yet not do what is necessary to make it a reality. Why is change so challenging?

We are not alone. The Jewish people also faced this phenomenon in this week’s Torah portion. They had been enslaved for hundreds of years by the Egyptians. Yet, while it was a horrendous existence, it became very familiar to them. It was their “normal.” They didn’t really know another reality. So much so, that when Moshe told them about their upcoming redemption, they resisted it.

Moshe was commanded to use strong and assertive language in order to wake the Jewish people from their slumber of slavery. The commentators state that Moshe used the same inflection of speech with the persecuted Jewish people as with Pharoah, their persecutor!

It is human nature to stay in what is comfortable and familiar even if it is unpleasant and at times unbearable. The pain of change is perhaps even more petrifying than the pain of the circumstance.

There are times in life when we need to speak to the Pharaoh within us, and harshly. We need to declare that it is time “he let us go” and allow us to pursue the path that is better for us even if the road to get there will be rocky and more difficult.

May we all merit to face our own “personal Pharaoh’s” and start the path of becoming our best selves in every way.

-Message based on Parsha Parables book by Rabbi Mordechai Kamenetzky.