Bo - Darkest Before the Dawn

I repeat, as I said in an earlier commentary, that I believe we are all addicts to something. Do not think you stand above the alcoholic or the drug addict. If we do not struggle with obsessive eating or working or exercising or gossiping, then we may be stuck in obsessive and destructive thought patterns about ourselves or the world.

With this in mind, I continue my reading of Exodus as a story of recovering from addiction, breaking free of being a “slave” to something outside ourselves.

As the Jews complete their break from slavery this week, and as we all complete our break from the things that hold us back, there is often greatest darkness before the dawn. Hollywood knows this: things often look bleakest for our hero just before the final breakthrough.

In this parshah, that motif is represented by the final three plagues. They all involve darkness. First, locusts cover the sky and blot out the sun. Next, actual darkness descends both day and night. Finally, the darkest of events in the darkness of night – death of the first-born. The Torah could not be clearer: we have reached the breaking point.

Pharaoh’s “hardened heart” also fits my view of slavery as a metaphor for addictions and other things that hold us back. We begin to move towards recovery when we recognize that something needs to change. It is hard to come to that realization, and then life is often easier for a time as we make adjustments and become healthier. But there is always a backlash. Moments come along when old feelings, doubts and insecurities rear their head and all the progress comes into question. At these times, we are being tested, being given an opportunity to keep moving forward towards wholeness or to turn back to old, comfortable-but-unhealthy ways. I think Pharaoh’s hardened heart is a nice metaphor for this process of struggle as one moves through recovery. It can be very easy to fall back into old patterns and then rationalize them. As Pharaoh first give in to the Jews and then changes his mind, an addict may one moment fight his problem and the next moment rationalize giving in to his cravings. Think of it as the bargaining phase.