This story goes back to the old house, when we had a much smaller gathering space for prayers and Shabbos meals. It did come to mind now, many years later, in the new, bigger and better Shabbos House, when we had to replace batteries in some of our Exit signs and emergency lighting this summer. I can’t believe we hadn’t posted this before!
One day we had an audit in the old Shabbos House, and the agent/inspector said we need lighted exit signs since we have public assembly. Hey, the law is the law, and there’s good safety reason for it, but to be honest it troubled me greatly: Here we work tirelessly to help students feel welcome and comfortable at Shabbos House. I didn’t want the biggest and brightest words to be how to get out! It’s so hard to get them to come in! We did order the Exit signs, but it didn’t sit well with me…
Until I realized an Alter Rebbe teaching on the Exodus, and then I realized EXIT is our whole mission and modus operandi, it’s at the heart of all that we do! And I felt much better about the illuminated bold Exit Signs.
Here’s the Alter Rebbe on the Exodus piece (in short):
First a couple of questions:
1) Why do we mention the Exodus SO often? Of course, Passover makes sense. And it is our earliest forming as a nation, so it’s important history. But why do we mention the Exodus in the Friday Night Kiddush – which recalls Creation and not the Exodus? It seems we mention the Exodus for mitzvot that are not specifically related to the Egypt story at all?
2) There’s a mitzvah to remember the Exodus each day. So the Rabbis added a 3rd biblical paragraph to the two paragraphs of the Shema, because Shema is a daily mitzvah and remembering the Exodus is a daily mitzvah. OK, it’s a convenient spot, but what’s the meaningful connection between the two?
3) The Mishna teaches us, and we say this in the Haggadah, that “in every generation, every person ought to envision themselves as if they themselves had left Egypt.” Why the need for us to feel that way? Every culture remembers their past (to some degree) but why are we encouraged to so vividly see ourselves in that ancient story?
The Alter Rebbe’s explanation begins with some simple word-play. The Hebrew name for Egypt is Mitzrayim, which also means limitations and boundaries. The Alter Rebbe teaches that Exodus isn’t only from the ancient land of Egypt near the Nile. We each have our own personal Egypts: our inhibitions, our limitations, our real and perceived boundaries. Reliving the Exodus isn’t only old history – it’s our breaking through our own limitations today!
Indeed, every mitzvah is a breakthrough Exodus! Shabbos is an exodus from the workweek. It challenges the limitations of worldliness and helps bridge infinite and finite. Each mitzvah allows us to transcend!
Shema is about the Oneness of G-d. Personal Exodus allows us to connect with G-d’s Oneness within our world, with deeper and richer degrees of connection. Peeling away at the external shells and layers, revealing the Oneness within!
And Shabbos House endeavors to be that Exodus from campus life, from life’s entanglements, from the winds and storms and challenges – to be a warm and welcoming connective space within, a campus community, a home.
(This shouldn’t be perceived as an Escape, though. Alter Rebbe doesn’t see Exodus as getting away from the world, but peeling away, reaching within, finding its inner core, deeper dimension… a story and post for another time!)