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We all find ourselves making good resolutions— intending to live, from now on, according to our deepest values. Yet when faced with the choice in actual practice our actions very often fall short, and yet again we find that we seem unable to follow through. There seems to be a disconnect between our ideals and our practice. We try different tactics but none of them really seem to make much of a difference. We often berate ourselves, not realising that we are up against a greater foe than we had realized.
Within ourselves is a Pharoah, just as intransigent as the one in Egypt and indeed , his inner equivalent. This is the aspect of the ego which blocks the Divine light from flowing from the head to the body; from the potential to the actual. Pharaoh takes our work and hijacks it for his own.
Just as in the Biblical story only He could take the Children of Israel out of Egypt with His outstretched arm, so, we too need HaShem in our life to take us out of our inner Egypt, to overcome our inner pharaoh.
Lesson adapted from a letter Rabbi Ashlag wrote to his pupils Parshat Shavua Shemot (Igarot HaSulam 12)
With grateful thanks to my chevrutas, Dr. Shmuel Iger- Kinyan, Dr Susan Jackson, Pamela Mond, Yehudit Goldfarb
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