Egypt to This Day

This year, the middle of April brought choices to the forefront.  From downtowns to social media, there are signs of spring and celebration.  It's so thrilling to get caught up in something bigger than ourselves, but often bigger isn't better.  My observance of Passover and Week of Matzo has been rather isolated.  It isn't a bad feeling, just the recognition that we are truly on the threshold of world changing events, and many have replaced what it is to seek our Creator with religious chasing.

As I read about the very first Passover, again this year, in perspective not only of that culture, but the present social climate, a recurring thought entered my mind again.  We are told specifically that the children of Israel were in Egypt 430 years to the day.  That means over several generations, the children of Israel had gone from being the favored guests of Joseph, second in command over all of Egypt, to slaves . . .  I don't believe they all went to bed one night as a free people, and awoke to slavery the next morning.  I think it was a conscious decision of each individual, but also a gradual sell-out and social decline.  I truly believe they thought their "sell-out" was only a trade or temporary loan, rather than the next step toward slavery.  Even though, all the inhabitants of Egypt were willing to sell themselves for food, I don't think anyone really considered that cost at the time.  And somehow through all those years, the children of Israel never assimilated into the Egyptian culture, at least not by Pharaoh's standards or their own cries of affliction and bondage.

We know through the plagues, Goshen was a protected pocket in Egypt, and the children of Israel did not suffer what the Egyptians did through the plagues.  By the plague of hail, some Egyptians became believers, and we are told later in Exodus, a mixed multitude left Egypt.  I learned several years ago in shul, Hebrew Scripture began to use the term "house of Israel" instead of "sons of Israel" to include the mixed multitude.  

As this Week of Unleavened Bread concludes, I am mindful of just how much affliction has been prophesied regarding the end of days.  I am also aware that the KJV has been in print for over 400 years now, which made Scripture available to the common man and not just in the hands of the religious leaders.  There is also the settlement of Jamesport, that dates just more than 400 years as well.  Are we nearing that time of "so many years" to the day?  I have also become painfully aware of how much assimilation has occurred in our society.  There is a day coming, in which the set apart remnant will take a different kind of Exodus.  I'm not buying into the second Exodus teaching, but rather, the Exodus of the remnant will simply be leaving the status quo and dependence upon the system.  Many have come out of the man-made religious celebrations, and that is wonderful, but we are at the point of realizing the Torah truly is the guardrail protecting us from the precipice of societal deterioration.  Just as the Exodus of the mixed multitude realized in the wilderness, there were some "comforts" with their slavery . . .

It's so easy to say we are set apart from this world, but the reality is, we are all still dependent on a great many things in our society.  Every time I move one step farther away from mainstream, I see things I hadn't even considered.  I'm not talking about sin, just convenience and comfort, that will at some point cause me to make a decision.  We're already watching uncomfortable changes coming to pass in the lifestyle to which many of us have become accustomed.   Will these things we take for granted become a thing of the past, or the sell-out to slavery?