Of course, Mitzrayim - boundness, straits - is a thousand different things. Desire, ignorance, disconnection, etc. The prison I've been feeling most this time around is what I expect of myself or how I define myself. To give an example, let's say I consider myself a guitarist. So every time I pick up a guitar, I'm thinking how I have to live up to the name, not dissapoint anybody. And if I hear someone better than me, I am crumbled. And if someone implies that I'm not as great as I think I am, I'm shattered. And if, for whatever reason, I can't play well, my entire life is ruined, because that is how I define myself. But if I know that I am Gavriel, and sometimes I pick up the guitar and strum a few chords, then I'm not putting so much pressure on myself, making it a life-death situation. And when I hear someone better than me, then I can humble myself and learn, and when someone offers constructive criticism, I can actually listen without getting angry.
Pharoah is pretty sure he's a god. Every time he finds out he's not, or sees someone more powerful, he's crushed. Every therapist who tells him he has a god-complex, he has them killed. You know what Pharoah says? "I'm G-d - and I made myself!" It's the worst trait possible - I'd be miserable if I made myself. I'd be a deluded, overly-sensitive, unreachable guitarist in a below-average white-guy blues band playing the Jersey shore club circuit.
My job is not to be G-d or a guitarist or a student - it is to be Gavriel. And I'm pretty sure it's the only job I can't be fired from. And ultimately, I can't quit.
Rav Gavriel Goldfeder
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Rav Gavriel Goldfeder is one of the first semicha recipients of the yeshiva. A graduate of Drew University in Religious Studies, he came to Bat Ayin after stints in other yeshivot and found a spiritual and intellectual home. Here he met his wife, Ketriellah, who was a student in our short-lived Women's Yeshiva. Upon graduation, Gavriel took the position of rabbi of the Aish Kodesh Congregation in Boulder, Colorado and together with Ketriellah and their growing family, they are busy creating (in Gavriel's words), "a community infused with Torah values, passion for learning and prayer, consideration of one another, and action, as well as deep celebration of the joys of life." |