Exodus From Ego Enslavement: Passover and Personal Transformation

With the Jewish holiday of Passover pending, we welcome Arthur Kurzweil as our guest, who as an author, educator, mentor, and publisher has inspired many to explore the profound moral roots and numinous mystical truths of Jewish tradition. In this episode of Soul Portals, we explore the story of Passover as analogous to the personal transformational journey from inordinate ego attachments to the summons of true interior freedom. What does the ancient story of a people’s liberation and destiny say about our own story of expansive soul growth?

In Hebrew, Egypt is called Mitzrayim. According to the text on Jewish mysticism, the Zohar, the name is derived from m’tzarim, meaning narrow straits. We all know what it’s like to live in our own mitzrayim, in contracted states of dysfunctional patterns, repetition compulsions, and addictive escapes. Those forms of psychospiritual slavery offer the familiarity of recycled suffering. Yet like the Jews reluctantly led out of Egypt by the promise of a redemptive and spiritually fulfilled life, a client in therapy for example, holds the hope of possibilities beyond self-imposed constraints. Even under the most severe circumstances, in times of unrelenting hardship and spiritual darkness, there is something in the holy human spirit that seeks the way of “mastering circumstances, instead of being mastered by them” (Rabbi Sholom Brodt, OBM).