Do Not Forget

It is certainly my experience that my external reality often reflects my internal state of mind. I know that there is a lot of new age thinking out there that takes this idea to absurd levels; like in the movie The Secret, a kid thinks of a bicycle and opens the door and there it is. That kind of over the top caricature can be a bit damaging because some people end up throwing the truth out with the garbage.

In the beginning of Shmot the Torah tells us we were fruitful and multiplied a lot. It uses six different terms for this and the Sforno learns that we got a little out of hand; following the ways of creepy crawling creatures. According to the Sforno, that’s the reason why the new king could not conceive that we were descendants of Yoseph’s family.

We acted lowly and we got treated accordingly.

Our reality conformed to our state of being.

I don’t want to get into this as an issue of holding a high moral ground. I want to talk about it in regards to how we hold ourselves, how we think about ourselves, and how our reality often conforms to that.

I’ve known men who hold themselves like royalty; they walk into a room and there is no way they would be slighted or disrespected, and if they are for whatever reason, it comes to an end almost instantly. I’ve seen some men be almost like magnets for money or women, and it’s how they hold themselves in the world, as if there is no question of them deserving. I’m not holding these guys up as people to emulate necessarily, the ones I have in mind had their own issues, but they did demonstrate this quality.

I also know too many guys who are absolute gems who project themselves into the world from their deep insecurities, and somehow the world reflects that back to them. It’s almost as if love and honor could walk right by them and look to make eye contact with them, but these men are so busy looking at their own shoes that they miss the opportunity to connect.

Imagine looking down at the ground, shoulders slumped, breathing shallowly, thinking negatively and judgmentally; that’s a whole way of being. For many of us it’s a posture in life that was imprinted on us when we were young, like soft and impressionable clay, whose shape hardened as we got older. And many of us created lives from that posture that reflects and enforces us to remain that way. We forget who we are and pharaoh creates a reality for us that conforms; tax collectors, hard labor, too tired and busy for intimacy.

The women, however, didn’t forget. The women remembered that we are here for intimacy. Whether it was the midwives who refused pharaoh’s orders or the women who lured us into the fields, it was the feminine desire for life and connection that kept us going.

Freedom from our self contained prisms of insecurity takes place through relationships. Relationships that encourage us to stand up straight, to breathe deeply and take time for intimacy, relationships that safely hold our vulnerabilities, relationships that look at us with eyes which reflect back to us our highest selves; eyes that not only reflect back who we are, but are open portals to an Infinite Love patiently waiting.

We get lost in the exile of our own insecurities and the reality we have constructed reflects that image back to us.

Freedom from our enslaved constriction comes from re-membering. Remembering who we are and, re-membering into the intimacy we were created to enjoy.

Have a great Shabbos,

Simcha