MARCH 25 • 2021 | 5

for openers
Who Inspires Us,
Moses or Pharaoh?
T

here are many ways 
to think of the drama 
that took place 
between Pharaoh and Moses 
in Biblical Egypt. Some think 
of it as history; others see it 
as folklore, and 
still others see it 
as an allegory to 
teach us morals.
The wisdom 
of Kabbalah has 
a completely 
different take on 
the story of the 
Exodus of the 
people of Israel from Egypt. It 
views it as a process that leads 
to one’s defining moment in 
life: The liberation from the 
ego and the entry into a new 
reality, where the ego is the 
servant and care for others is 
the king.
This is why today, when 
egoism is our sole ruler, it is 
so important to introduce the 
concepts of the wisdom of 
Kabbalah, since only caring 
for others will prevent the 
world from exploding into 
pieces.
In Kabbalistic texts, 
Pharaoh represents the ego, 
our inclination to focus on 
ourselves and strive for supe-
riority over others. The peri-
od that humanity is in today 
is indeed a “Pharaoh” period. 
These days, Pharaoh, peo-
ple’s untainted and unhinged 
egoism, is coming to the fore. 
It controls our lives, organizes 
them, and we have nowhere 
to run from its control. Even 
when we realize that it is not 
good for us to let Pharaoh 

govern and enslave us, we opt 
for “bread and circuses” since 
we feel helpless against it.

A PLEASURE HUNT?
Nevertheless, bit by bit, the 
realization that our situation 
is not as it should be is form-
ing within us. Gradually, we 
are realizing that the endless 
pleasure hunt leaves us empty 
in the end. We are born, 
mature, get a job, perhaps a 
career, have children, grow 
old, get sick and die. Why do 
we go through these cycles?
If in the end we die and 
stop existing, then why be 
born in the first place? The 
little pleasures we have in life, 
if we have them at all, allevi-
ate some of the pain we expe-
rience the rest of the time, 
but if there is nothing left of 
our lives when they end, then 
what is the purpose of living, 
and what is the purpose of 
the suffering?
When we begin to ask these 
questions, and today more 
and more people are asking 

them, it is a sign that we are 
beginning to disagree with 
Pharaoh’s governance over us. 
This is the beginning of the 
emerging of the Moses within 
us — a new perspective on 
life that wishes to pull us out 
of the shackles of egoism and 
deliver us from the metaphor-
ic land of selfishness: Egypt.
The wisdom of Kabbalah 
does not relate to physical 
locations or to flesh-and-blood 
people. Every persona in the 
drama is a force within us, and 
every land, a type of desire. 
Egypt represents the desire 
for self-indulgence, con-
centration on oneself, while 
Israel stands for the desire 
to give, to care about others, 
to connect with their hearts. 
Both “lands” exist in every 
person in the world; there-
fore, every person can choose 
with whom to sympathize: 
the inner land of Egypt, 
egoism, or the inner land of 
Israel, giving.
When Moses begins to 
grow within us, we begin 

to feel our stay in Egypt as 
pressing and oppressive. 
When the Passover story 
tells us that the people of 
Israel were in exile in Egypt, 
it means that they began to 
want to free themselves from 
the shackles of egoism, but 
Pharaoh, the kernel of ego-
ism, would not let them go 
out free.
After some time in that 
state, the Moses force within 
us begins to gain strength and 
makes all the pleasures that 
the ego offers seem pointless 
and tasteless. It isn’t that we 
suddenly fall from riches to 
rags, but that the same riches 
that felt so good before, feel 
pointless and meaningless, 
and we lose all joy from hav-
ing them. But in the absence 
of having any other pleasures, 
we feel it all as emptiness and 
hunger. Worse yet, since we 
are not yet free from egoism 
and must still serve it, though 
we no longer want to, we feel 
that we are slaves, enslaved to 
Pharaoh.

WORTHWHILE GOALS
Today, many thousands of 
people already feel like that. 
They are especially common 
among younger people, who 
grew up seeing their parents’ 
lifestyles and simply do not 
want them. They find no 
pleasure in them, but they 
also find no pleasure in any-
thing else. This is why so 
many of them turn to sub-
stance abuse to forget about 
life, or to extreme sports or 
violence, frantically search-

Michael 
Laitman
Times of 
Israel

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