What Does it Mean that Egypt Was Flowing With Milk and Honey in the Passover Haggadah?
Egypt (i.e. the ego) becomes a dungeon only when you start to think about spiritual exile, i.e. when you lack the Creator, the quality of bestowal and love. If not for the need for spiritual redemption, Egypt (the ego) by itself is a land (i.e. a desire) flowing with milk and honey (i.e. our egoistic desires envision all kinds of pleasures). Here you have everything besides the Creator, besides the answer to the question about the meaning of life. You have everything else in abundance. You are living the life of a king and you lack only to want bestowal and “love for the neighbor.”
When you desire precisely this, then Egypt (the ego) will seem like exile to you. This is the only thing missing here – love for the neighbor. Thus, it turns out that we celebrate Passover to commemorate the good life in Egypt and not the redemption, which no one really needs. After all, coming out of Egypt means throwing away everything we have besides love.
Do we feel that we are in exile? On the contrary, people do not understand what this means. However, love for the neighbor has to become your only desire. Moses (i.e. the point in the heart, desire for spirituality, in the person) demands from Pharaoh (i.e. the intention to receive personal gain in the person), “Let my people go! I want to leave!” (i.e. “Stop controlling all the inclinations in me with this constant intention to get personal gain all the time! I want to be able to love and give with a pure desire!”) To which Pharaoh replies, “What do you lack, Moses? You grew up in my arms. Stay the Egyptian prince. Be a prince! Why are you making a revolution here? For the sake of love for the neighbor? You’ve gone crazy!” (i.e. “The point in the heart emerged as an egoistic desire among all the self-aimed desires you’ve had since you were born. You’ve always managed to get along, find pleasures and make your way in life through all these egoistic desires, and there’s nothing for you if you love another as yourself. What would you get from that?”)
Only at the end of the path does Egypt (the ego) become a land of exile for us. But until that happens, we are satiated with everything besides bestowal. [Based on Dr. Michael Laitman, “Egypt Flowing with Milk and Honey“]
To learn more about how Kabbalah describes holidays and many other concepts at their root level, before they dress into the material world, it is recommended to take the Free Kabbalah Course. The reason is that many of the concepts and terms we have heard a lot about in our upbringing have completely different definitions in Kabbalah, and it takes a while to process them properly. Therefore, if you’re interested in this topic, then we recommend taking the free course and start learning about the world around you and inside you anew. Click the banner below to sign up for the free course …
