In our parsha this week, Moshe tells us: "Remember this day as the day when we left Egypt, when we left our slavery thanks to G-d's strong hand that took us out....oh yeah...and don't eat chametz (bread that has risen)." What? Where did chametz come from all of a sudden? The most peculiar feature of chametz is its expansiveness. Bread dough left in a warm place will rise on its own to twice its size in a matter of hours. So what does a nice soft sourdough have to do with our Exodus from Egypt? Rabbi Dovid Kaplan (no relation) teaches that Egypt was not about what WE did, it was about what G-d did. Matzah (the anti-chametz) doesn't rise at all. It doesn't do anything on its own, it is completely dependent upon the baker. "Don't eat chametz" was Moshe's way of reminding us that neither we, nor Moshe, nor Pharaoh was responsible for our freedom. But after all of the miraculous plagues, wasn't it obvious that we weren't in control, that G-d was running the show?
The Chassidic Rav that we study the most here at Bat Ayin is Rebbe Nachman of Breslov. He says that the goal of learning Torah, the goal of living life, is not to attain some kind of intense higher wisdom. He says we need to achieve IGNORANCE! "No way!" I thought upon reading this. "What a waste of time to come to Yeshiva if I'm looking for ignorance. I came here for answers!" I considered myself pretty ignorant before I came here. Why should I devote hours everyday to "unlearning" what I worked so hard to know? The answer is: because I don't know. It was an easy mistake to make. I turn the key and therefore the car starts. I set my alarm and therefore I wake up (usually). I spend an hour learning Talmud and therefore I gain an understanding (hopefully). It is I who causes all that to happen. Isn't it?
Last week, Rav Natan spoke about patience. In the crazed pace of our lives on earth, patience often gets thrown into the closet and buried under a pile of obligations, hopes, and desires. But this neglected friend is our best weapon against a life that might otherwise go by far too quickly, glossing over the incredible sweetness life has to offer. Patience is ultimately the force that allows us to find miracles everyday. Without patience, I'd never stop and smell that rose, nor stop and look and the ocean, nor stop to think about the thousands of interdependent biological processes involved in a baby's birth. Patience allows us to meditate, to think a bit deeper, about the things, people, and events we connect with everyday. Sure, I turn the key and the car starts, but if it doesn't start, it is the mechanics who make millions of dollars annually by having the patience to examine all the steps in between the key turning and the car starting. (and they unfortunately have the patience to find the most expensive step to fix!)
Learning Torah, living life, these aren't things we DO, they are not things we control, they are things we are a part of. This is what Moshe was telling us as we left Egypt. "There are going to be times, very soon, when G-d won't be showing himself as clear as day. You're going to have to start looking for G-d all around you, in the details of life, because if you don't, you'll fall back into Mitzrayim, back into that narrowness of consciousness that Egypt was for you."
We are human, adahm, the same Hebrew word as "earth." The earth has the ability to nurture and grow any seed planted within it, and so do we. We have the power to chose, the power to create, but because we are "earthlike" our power is completely dependent upon what we do and how we adapt when challenges arise. Adaptability means never being 100% sure that I know. 99% is great, but 100% means I'm stuck in who and what I know, and I'm not at all in touch with the truth of the situation. That's why Rebbe Nachman saw ignorance as a goal. We survive in the world by teaching ourselves, by adding to the things we know. The funny thing is, for each thing we know, there are at least 723,000,000 things we don't know. Alas! But do not despair, because when we realize there is one thing we actually don't know, that leaves a mere 729,999,999 things to "unknow". I bless us all to have the patience to get to "unknow" ourselves.