One of the central themes celebrated on Passover is the freedom of the Jewish people. Up until that point in history the Jews were a nation of slaves in Egypt and with the Exodus they were freed and became masters of their own destiny. This message is prominently placed in the beginning of the Haggadah where we declare that while we were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, if God had not taken our ancestors out we would all still be slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt.
The trouble with this is peculiar opening statement is that while ancient Egypt endured for an extortionately long time, perhaps as long as three thousand years, it - the most advanced culture the world had seen - also ultimately fell to the Roman Empire and became just another Roman province. Christianity then took root followed by Islam, when Egypt was conquered by the Muslim army under the Rashidun caliphate in the 7th century. Throughout the centuries, the ever-evolving Egypt eventually came to bear almost no similarity at all to its historical counterpart of Biblical and ancient fame.
If so, what are the chances that the Jewish people really would have ‘remained there as slaves to Pharaoh’ as entire civilizations rose and fell around them and even the mere concept of a ‘Pharaoh’ became a distant memory more closely correlated with an artifact in a museum than a powerful leader?
Our sages also direct us to view the experience of leaving Egypt as if it’s currently happening, in real time. How is the exodus of an ancient people thousands of years ago from a civilization that has since crumbled - never to rise again - relevant to Generation Z in the world of social media, artificial intelligence and Netflix?
Enter the ancient Egyptian god turned Jewish sacrifice and perhaps the most obscure character of the Exodus story: the Pascal lamb. With since lost technology that still baffles engineers and scientists today, the ancient Egyptians were light years ahead of other civilizations in terms of engineering, agriculture and societal development. What did such an advanced, cultured nation see in the sheep that they venerated it so much? And why did the Jewish people slaughter the sheep as they left Egypt?
On Friday July 8th 2005, in the Van province of eastern Turkey, shepherds watched in horror as hundreds of their sheep followed each other over a cliff. The BBC reported that one sheep had ostensibly stepped over the cliff edge by mistake only to be followed by the entire flock with thousands jumping off and hundreds falling to their death. Turkish newspapers reported a loss of about £42,000 in all. As the old adage goes, they literally followed each other like sheep! This brief newspaper report symbolizes the essence of what sheep do. They follow. Even if following is counterintuitive and clearly detrimental to them to the point of being fatally harmful. Sheep will literally follow to the death. As long as there’s a sheep in front of them going somewhere – anywhere! - the rest of the sheep will follow.
This concept of blindly following what was previously accepted is the very bedrock on which Egyptian culture was built. There was nothing that made a Pharaoh different to a slave other than the fact that a Pharaoh was born into the royal family and a slave was not. In other words, serfdom and the feudal system reigned supreme. How you were born was how you lived and how you died. Born a Pharaoh you died a Pharaoh and born a slave you died a slave, for that was your fate. And in a society governed by fate, you follow - you don’t create; your value and worth are signed and sealed from the day you are born with no chance of escape. This sheep mentality, echoed in the animal itself, is what the ancient Egyptians worshipped and just like sheep, in ancient Egypt you followed to the death. I am struck by the powerful imagery of Pharaoh exhorting his soldiers to follow him in pursuit of the Israelites to the Red Sea. And they follow. Even though he and they know full well that it will be the death of them.
This mentality, attitude and societal philosophy is also the polar opposite of what Jewish culture believes in, espoused by Moses and the newly established Jewish law. Their dissenting view at its core was that all human beings have unlimited potential and no matter what you born into or what your circumstances are, you have the innate ability to change the world. From Jethro to Ruth, from King David to Rabbi Akiva, your circumstances and background mean nothing and you are only judged by what you achieve - not where you come from. In this system, the only thing holding you back from greatness is yourself.
This is precisely why the Jewish people were commanded to risk their lives and slaughter an Egyptian deity at the onset of the first Passover. They were slaughtering the sheep mentality that had held them back for hundreds of years. They were embedding in their DNA that the background you come from and the family you were born into are all meaningless. Man is judged solely by what he accomplishes, in direct contradiction to the Egyptian culture.
The Jewish people’s exodus from Egypt wasn’t simply a matter of a physical departure; they were also undergoing a monumental mental shift. They were leaving this mentality behind them, symbolically slaughtered and its blood pasted on the doorposts of the homes that for so long had been little more than prisons. From this point on they were now masters of their own destiny and creators of their future, not followers of a herd.
Let’s return to our opening statement: If the Jewish people had not left Egypt they would still be slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt. This means that had the Jewish people not bought into this new mindset they would still be slaves to this sheep mentality, be it under the ancient Egyptians, Rome or any other culture or society that would rise after that. It was the sheep mentality that they were escaping and this concept is just as relevant to a Jew in London in 2020 as it was to a Jew leaving Egypt in 1476 BCE. Possibly even more so.
