Our Yetzer Harah, Our Self

The early parshiot of Shmot (Shmot, Va'Eirah, Bo, and the start of Beshalach) contain a subtle theme of slavery, often overshadowed by the blatant enslavement at the forefront of our story. It is important to study the slavery of a different flavor which provides a crucial subtext which plays a crucial role in the tale of redemption.

Paroh relentlessly restrained the Jewish People, even after repeatedly receiving the strong demand from G-d that he release them. In light of the devastation he suffered Paroh's refusal to let the Jews go is perplexing. Paroh becomes easier to understand when compared to an addict. An alcoholic causes his own downfall, then swears to make amends, and then continues to destroy his own life. He can't stop drinking, even as he watches it ruin his life. Despite his knowledge of the consequences to his actions, Paroh, like any addict, couldn't control himself and pursued behavior which led him to death.

Like Paroh we each mirror the addictive personality. Rabbi Abraham Twerski proposes reading any book on alcoholism and replacing "alcohol" with "yetzer hara." The result produces a treatise on our own daily struggles and temptations. Our compulsive drives do not differ greatly from those of an alcoholic or addict. We all have addictions, such as food, TV, gossip, sleep, video games, texting, sports, movies, etc. We run the risk of becoming slaves to our own physical selves. In a way we resemble the despot who enslaved our ancestors more than Bnei Yisrael themselves.

In Twerski on Spirituality, the author refers to addiction as "the most absolute type of slavery the world has ever known". This is because an addict "is likely to do things he never thought possible, but when he is in the grip of addiction, the drug is a ruthless totalitarian dictator" and under his regime "the addict completely loses the unique human distinction of being free". Despite America's title as land of the free, like Paroh many of us only appear free while really being enslaved in the worst possible way to our own passions.

Fraida Liba Levine points out that being the addict that he was Paroh dealt with his human insecurity and feeling of helplessness by feigning power and control. Chazal tell us that he claimed to have no imperfections, and due to his inability to admit any human flaws he would go down to the Nile early in the morning to use the bathroom. (Thus, in 7:16 Hashem tells Moshe, “Go in the morning when he goes to the water…”)

It must have been difficult to hold it in the rest of the day, and it was only to be thought of as greater than he was, more than a very powerful king. Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz says that we see the power of kavod. We, like Par'oh, go to great lengths to keep up facades for the sake of honor that brings us no tangible added benefit in life. Paroh was enslaved to his image as a deity.

When Moshe was first approached by the Jewish People saying he’d been sent to save them, they were preoccupied with burdensome work and that's why they didn't listen. Paroh didn't have the distraction they had, so he could listen. This makes it difficult to understand why Moshe posits that if the people didn’t listen then surely Paroh wouldn’t. How is it a logical argument, a solid kal vechomer? The Birchas Mordechai (Rav Mordechai Mizrachi) explains that they were preoccupied and so was Paroh. He worked all day at playing god, which is very exhausting. And yet he was addicted, caught up in his own form of slavery.

He was afraid of Bnai Yisrael taking over his power, a fear which was baseless yet caused the slave to enslave others. This is not unusual: haven't we all seen the bully pick on others due to his own sense of personal inadequacy, branding others with labels he fears apply to him? The more Paroh fought to gain control and claim power the more he lost control and fell into helplessness, just like every common addict.

If the pregnant subtext of Paroh being an addict seems like a stretch, let a more blatant subtext not be missed. Bnai Yisrael were addicted to Egypt. We're told that they were taken out from sivlot Mitzrayim. The Sfat Emet points out the connection to patience - savlanut. They had become used to the routine of slavery. In a way they liked it. We hear later repeatedly how much they miss Egypt, hard as it was they got into it. They yearn for fleshpots, and gourds, and beg, "Take us back." They even miss the Egyptian graves, alluding that it would be a shame to die in the desert given that Egypt was a death focused society.

Mitzrayim is an abstraction as well as a geographical place. The word means straits. In every generation on any given day we are each trying to escape our own Mitzrayim. As Shlomo HaMelech put it, we often behave like dogs, eating food which harms us. Then after we vomit, we cave to temptation and return to taste what we just regurgitated. How human, how sad.

One night fourteen years ago I was in Israel and grabbed dinner at Bonker's Bagels in Geulah. The place was empty except for me and a chevra of yeshivish yeshivah bachumrim. A man entered and asked for tzedakah. One of the boys asked the poor fellow how he had the chutzpah to beg for money when he was clearly using it on cigarettes (he was smoking one at that moment). Without missing a beat the reply came back, "G-d should save you from addiction." I hope I never forget that moment. The truth is that those boys, like all us humans, are not spared but have to struggle every day to overcome one form of addiction or another, our yetzer harah, our self.

May we be blessed with the wisdom necessary to understand, remember, and learn from the overt as well as the covert varieties of slavery present in the story of our sojourn in Mitzrayim. May we win the battle against our own slavery. And may we merit daily and ultimate redemption every day, speedily, in our lifetime.