Estelle Frankel, a teacher of Jewish mysticism, describes how the story of Exodus reveals our human preference for what is known, even if something new may be better for us:
All freedom journeys require an open mind—a mind that is not conditioned by past knowledge and experience, but open to possibility. Questioning opens the doors of our imagination, enabling us to consider alternatives to the status quo. Unless one is capable of imagining another possible reality, one cannot free oneself from bondage.…
We humans are creatures of habit. Our daily routines comfort us and make us feel secure for they allow us to know and predict what is going to happen. Resistance to change is actually built into our evolutionary wiring….
The compulsion to repeat the past is apparent in the biblical myth of the Exodus. When Moses led the Israelites to freedom, they often yearned to return to Egypt. Though they were miraculously provided for throughout their forty years of wandering in the desert, the Israelites were often nostalgic for the “good old (bad) days” in Egypt: “We remember the fish we ate free in Mitzrayim—also the cucumber, melons, leeks, onions and garlic” (Numbers 11:5)…. They missed the predictability and sense of control they felt in Egypt—where everything was known. Though in actuality they were oppressed and enslaved by the Egyptians, the Israelites looked back on their time in Egypt with nostalgia because they could not bear the uncertainty they faced as a free people.
Freedom is, ultimately, uncertain and unpredictable. One of the first lessons we all must learn in order to be free is how to “bear” uncertainty and trust in the unknown. In the biblical myth of the Exodus, the manna was a vehicle for learning this lesson. Each day for forty years, the Israelites would have to go out and gather their daily supply of manna—just enough for that day….
The manna provided the necessary preparation for becoming a free people, for freedom requires an ability to bear uncertainty, to not know what is going to happen next, and to trust in the unfolding journey.
The “manna” of our daily lives is an opportunity for us to practice this same beginner’s mind.
The manna challenged the Israelites to develop beginner’s mind—to experience something new and fresh while eating the very same thing each day. Instead of seeking the answers that might put their questions to rest, the manna taught the Israelites to continually live the questions, to understand that the journey to freedom is about remaining awake and curious and not going into sleep mode….
Beginner’s mind is a way of life. Each day we are challenged to see the same familiar people and landscapes with new eyes. Just as the cosmos is created and sustained anew each moment, everything is alive and changing, ourselves included, if we are spiritually awake and paying attention…. When we see existence as alive with possibility, we come out of Egypt, our personal places of bondage and constriction.
Reference:
Estelle Frankel, The Wisdom of Not Knowing: Discovering a Life of Wonder by Embracing Uncertainty (Shambhala, 2017), 38, 41, 43–44, 45.
Image credit and inspiration: Clay Banks, untitled (detail), 2020, photo, USA, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. Walking into the wild becomes a mirror of the Exodus itself—risking the unknown so that, in the wandering, we discover the quiet, faithful presence that leads us toward freedom and deeper communion with God.
Story from Our Community:
My exodus journey began when I began studying geology at university. As I looked at the wonderful array of minerals and rocks, I could not accept the fundamentalist line of the church I attended. I felt a bit of a rebel, trying to square the circle of faith and science. Then I read The Universal Christ and scales fell from my eyes! It didn’t have to be one or the other but an embracing of both in the Mystery of Christ.
—Margaret J.
