Our Post-Passover Challenge: Splitting our Own Red Seas

One of the great and fascinating Jewish themes is the interplay between the communal and the personal, between yearning for the collective good and seeking the individual good.

We just commemorated during Passover a classic example of the collective good, when God saves the Jewish people by splitting the Red Sea. The Jews were fleeing the Egyptians who had enslaved them. Seeing that they would soon drown in the raging sea, as the biblical story is told, God parted the waters and allowed our ancestors to march to freedom.

But as often happens in Jewish thought, collective ideas have a personal dimension. I heard an interesting one recently from my friend Rabbi Mordecai Finley on one of his Facebook talks. Here’s the basic idea, which Finley attributes to the mystical school of Chassidut: As important as the splitting of the Red Sea was to our collective survival, so is the splitting of our own individual seas. We all have raging waters that threaten to drown us. We all have a sea we can “split” to chart a better course.

We all have raging waters that threaten to drown us. We all have a sea we can “split” to chart a better course.

The raging waters represent our ego selves which bring us “ego pleasures” rather than a deeper, more meaningful existence. These fleeting pleasures cater to our primal appetites and make most of the noise in our minds. They drown out our divine souls. When we’re made acutely aware of their power over us, we feel close to drowning, just like the Jews facing the Red Sea.

At that moment, we have a unique opportunity to access a Divine energy and garner the strength to split our own sea and march to our own liberation. Freed from the bondage of our egos, our liberation takes us on a journey of renewal toward a more meaningful life.

What are the raging waters that stand in our way? For some it may be uncontrolled anger, for others self-absorption and unbridled material ambition, for others arrogance, undue fear, envy or a chronic lack of empathy. Whatever they are, we must confront these obstacles so honestly that we can feel their ability to overwhelm our better selves. Only then can we nurture the will to take radical action and forge new paths.

The 49 days between Passover and the festival of Shavuot—also known as the days of counting the Omer—represent an ideal time to engage in this difficult work. Having just commemorated a communal miracle, we are ready to work on our own individual miracles.

The 49 days between Passover and the festival of Shavuot—also known as the days of counting the Omer—represent an ideal time to engage in this difficult work.

It’s telling that the 49 days culminate in another classic communal moment, when Jews received the Torah at Mount Sinai more than 3,300 years ago. After our liberation from slavery, we needed time to prepare ourselves spiritually to receive the divine Book that has sustained us for millennia.

This interplay between the communal and the personal reminds us that “saving the Jewish people,” as dramatic and fundamental as any idea in Jewish history, is still contingent on another idea.

We also must save ourselves.