By Reb Hershy W.
14 SMALL IN NUMBER
As it is written:
"Seventy souls your fathers went down into Egypt".
Seventy seems to be a pivotal number in the Jewish story. Seventy is the minimum number of people who can represent Israel, there were seventy elders of the people. There are seventy interpretations to the Torah.
70 languages.
70 nations.
70 letters in the ineffable name of Hashem.
70 sparks of Holiness scattered in the shattering of vessels, which describes the
fall of Adam and Chava (Eve), and the expulsion from the garden of Eden.
Significantly, Yocheved, mother of Miriam Aharon and Moshe, was born in between the walls of the city as they arrived. Yocheved was the last of the 70. I think that there are probably 70 addictions.
BECAME A NATION
We didn't quite fit into the Egyptian lifestyle. Try as we might we could never quite get comfortable, always feeling outside the mainstream. The story that follows depicts the beginning of our slavery. We may have tried to assimilate, we began doing things contrary to our nature simply to be more like the Egyptians. We experimented with their ideas, trying to absorb and be absorbed by their culture. All we got was the poisonous propaganda and none of the benefits. They denied us citizenship and gave birth to us instead of melting us down. As a grain of irritating sand in the stomach of the oyster, we became a pearl. We stuck out. Egypt became our womb, the crucible of our shape.
AND I PASSED OVER YOU
"I saw you wallowing in your blood. And I said to you, "By your blood shall ye live". And I said to you "By your blood shall ye live.'"
This is an important rule in Recovery. Are we prepared to go to any lengths?
Will we chase serenity as we chased our Anodyne of choice? Are we prepared to carry the message to others the way it was carried to us?
"The message is clear" Says Hashem. "Either you invest your blood in this mission I give you, or else you'll live by your blood".
AND THE EGYPTIANS PLOTTED EVIL AGAINST US
As it is written:
"Let us be crafty, lest they multiply. And it will happen if the opportunity
arises, a war will break out and they will join our enemies and fight us and leave the
land".
This is the description of the onset of the disease. The behavior or habit takes on a guile and cunning as though it were part of a master plan. Powerful and baffling!
So it was with the Egyptians. They did whatever they had to,
making sure not to spook us into refusing. Once we were hooked, they led us gently by the
nose down the path to the point where we no longer had a choice but to do as we were told.
They gave us important tasks to perform, granaries and treasuries to build, told us how
well we were doing, how much they needed us. They told us that what we were paying them in
labor was just taxes. As it is written:
"And they appointed tax collectors over them".
"They gave us hard work".
"And the Egyptians worked the Children of Israel harshly".
The midrash tells us that at first all Egyptians gathered to make bricks. Pharaoh himself rolled up his sleeves and played in the mud with us making bricks. We thought we were doing no more than our patriotic duty.
The actual Hebrew word for harshly is PARECH which is made up of two separate words, PEH-RACH meaning "gentle mouth". This is how addiction always begins. It feels good. Softly we were seduced into a life that became increasingly harsh and oppressive. Which of us doesn't remember how hard we worked to stay out there?