Let the Brushstrokes of Creation Inspire Your Masterpiece
Reimagine Passover as a Journey of Spiritual Impressionism
Do you sometimes feel displaced?
Have you ever felt oppressed?
Can any of us truly imagine what it means to be a slave?
If not, then how is it possible for us to fully appreciate the meaning of freedom?
Displacement and oppression have defined most of Jewish history as a response to our repeated failure to value spiritual exaltation over material prosperity.
Every time we’ve turned our backs on our divine mission, Providence compels us to rediscover the consequences of disconnection through the crucible of exile.
Perhaps that explains why, through the ages, the aspirants to authentic piety have embarked on journeys of self-imposed exile.
These exceptional individuals have willing undertaken to wander anonymously from place to place, begging for bread and lodging, concealing their true character and brilliance, never knowing what awaits them around the next turn in the road.
There was nothing romantic about these adventures. They were intended to inure budding spiritual leaders against attachment to material comforts, to teach them humility as a bulwark against the reverence and adulation that would be showered upon them when once they rose to positions of influence.
How can we create for ourselves an experience of exile that will enable us to value the blessings of freedom?
From my new book, The Spiral of Time, due out this August.