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When the body is enslaved, the mind often keeps it company. People who have only known captivity can only dream of freedom in the vaguest terms. It floats about in their minds, a shapeless ideal that they dare not try to picture, lest the images infest their present and make the bleak reality of their daily lives even harder. Sometimes, in captivity, it’s best to turn off your mind.

When this week’s Torah portion, Bo, details the last three plagues that precede the Israelites’ release from slavery, it is natural for us to picture ourselves the underdogs, like our ancestors who suffered for years under Egyptian rule. We root for them, imagine their amazement and delight at learning that the God of their ancestors had not forgotten them, and cheer with every miraculous sign that freedom will be theirs. But what do we really know of their experience, of the limitations placed upon their bodies and their minds?

Daring not to dream, perhaps the Israelites had spent years becoming smaller, watching their hopes fade with each passing year of captivity, with each baby boy ripped from his mother, with each lash on their sunburnt backs in the unforgiving climate of this land of many gods, none of whom seemed to give a damn about this people suffering in their midst. If only Pharaoh understood that he had nothing to fear from them, that they were good people, that they could be better workers without their literal and figurative chains. If they could just keep their heads down, do as they were told, maybe Pharaoh would treat them better. Or, even better, maybe he would forget about them altogether.

And Moses appeared, this man of their blood who felt nothing like kin, whose experiences in life looked nothing like theirs. Even with Aaron at his side, Moses was a stranger whose grandiose promises must have seemed terrifying to the Israelites. Did they dare to hope? Would allowing the dream to take seed leave them worse off than before, freshly aware of their scars and their captivity? With each new plague, each new appeal, how could the Israelites even start to open their minds to the possibility of freedom? They had been beaten, exploited, and robbed of their dignity—and now this uppity outsider had come to make trouble. Under the blazing hot sun, they struggled to make bricks without straw, perhaps even cursing Moses under their breaths for making their plight even harder.

Sure, the Nile had been turned to blood. But I’m still a slave. Piles of frog carcasses were rotting outside of the homes of the Egyptians. But I’m still a slave. Egyptians’ homes and fields were struck with lice, swarms of insects, pestilence, and then thick, painful boils erupted all over their skin, making them writhe in agony. But I’m still a slave. Hail rains down on Egyptian crops, ruining their food supply; locusts cover their land, and then they are cloaked in complete and total darkness. But I am still a slave.

But then they were told to slaughter a lamb and spread its blood on their doorposts so that the Angel of Death would pass over them in the night. The whole land of Egypt awoke at dawn to the sound of a scream, the gut-wrenching howl of families discovering that they had lost the most precious thing in the world, a child that they had loved and cherished… now lifeless on a bed. Every Egyptian household, from the wealthiest landowner to the non-Israelite slave, experienced the death of a first-born son that night. And every Israelite, no matter how resentful of their state, must have felt their pain on a visceral level, knowing too well what it was to have an innocent child ripped away in the dark of night.

I cannot imagine that a single Israelite took pleasure in that sound. But maybe, in the moment it reached their ears, they started to understand. Intense loss unites all of us. No human is lesser or greater than any other in the face of suffering; it comes for everyone, each in his time.

Perhaps the pain of their oppressors reminded the Israelites that no one deserves to have their heart ripped from their body. Perhaps they felt compassion for the Egyptians and, in that realization, took their first step toward recovering their souls and their sense of self. Hatred does not have to engender hatred. I am not a slave to hatred. Revenge is not my only course of action. I am not a slave to vengeance. The Egyptians tried to make me feel small and worthless. I am free to walk away.  

Learning to be free in spirit would take the Israelites many years of desert wandering. God stayed with them every step of the way, guiding and providing for them, allowing them to move forward into the future with a new framework and a newfound confidence.  The journey from fear to freedom must have been a long and winding road, but once they reached that promised land, they were a new people, individually and collectively, no longer willing to say nothing in the face of tyranny.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rebecca Abbate