Not Ready, Not Alone

We are coming close to Pesach, and this year it feels different.

There is a war over our heads. There is so much we do not understand. What really got us into this war, and how we will get out. We do not know what will be in a week, in a month. We do not know if we will be sitting around our beautiful Seder tables or sitting in a mamad with the Haggadah on our laps, trying not to spill cups of grape juice on the multi-human pileup while we listen for booms in there. Leaning and bracing simultaneously.

It's erev Pesach and we have been eating maror for weeks already, and we have not yet tasted the matzah.

People are looking for inspiration now. For answers. For something to hold onto.

I do not have big answers. But I am resonating with searching hearts. And I am thinking a lot about redemption.

We like to imagine that Bnei Yisrael left Egypt when they were ready. When they were holy. When they were strong. When they believed. But that is not what the story says.

The story says they were not ready. They were still in avodah zarah. The malachim said הללו עובדי עבודה זרה והללו עובדי עבודה זרה. They couldn’t even formulate a coherent prayer. It was grunts, cries, and sighs. They didn’t even really believe in redemption.

“Moshe spoke thus to Bnei Yisrael, but they did not listen to Moshe because of shortness of breath and hard labor.”

מִקֹּצֶר רוּחַ וּמֵעֲבֹדָה קָשָׁה.

They couldn’t breathe enough to believe.

Why should the sea split for them? What made them worthy? The Torah tells us that actually, they weren’t. They were in the 49th gate of tumah. One more moment and they would have been stuck forever. And as it was, four-fifths didn’t leave.

Think about those four-fifths for a moment. Darkness was the ninth plague. They had already lived through eight of them and saw clearly that the Egyptians were getting slammed and the Jews were being protected. Why did they give up? Why weren’t they packing their bags?

Maybe because they couldn’t handle the process. The messiness. That middle place where we aren’t in the same old slavery, and we aren’t yet free. The middle stage can be torture. And four-fifths gave up.

And still, the others left.

Because sometimes redemption does not come when you are ready. Sometimes redemption comes when you cannot stay where you are for one more minute. When you are willing to tolerate not knowing the end of the story and still step into the wilderness. Or the sea.

The sea did not split when they were standing safely on the shore. The sea split when they were already in the water. Up to their knees. Up to their waist. Up to their neck.

Maybe even with just one nostril above the waves.

We do not have to see the end to start walking. But we do have to be willing to step in.

There is a moment in every process of growth where you are not ready, but you cannot stay.

You are not who you were, but you are not yet who you are becoming. It is a terrifying place. A messy place. An in-between place. That gangly teenage awkward phase.

Anyone who has ever made Pesach knows this moment. The hardest parts is Shabbos HaGadol, right?! Most of the house is already Pesachdik. But you still have children. You still have meals. There is still bread. Everything is complicated. Everything is messy. It is so easy to mess everything up. So hard to keep everything clean. You are in between worlds. Not chametz. Not yet fully Pesach.

It’s that moment when you spent the whole morning cleaning and somehow the room looks messier than it ever did before. Piles everywhere. You're sorting what to keep, what to toss, what's you and what never really was. The chaos is visceral. Your mind wanders and you wonder... If a government official walked in right now, they would think a rocket hit? Would the government compensation cover your Pesach bill?

Maybe that’s why it’s called Shabbos HaGadol. It’s when we want to be big- and totally know that we’re not there yet.

That is what growth feels like.

And I am realizing more and more, both in my work and in my own life, that what makes that middle stage bearable or unbearable is not how strong you are and not how much insight you have.

It is whether you are alone there.

And what you believe about yourself in the moments when you have nothing to show for yourself.

I think this is the deepest fear so many people carry. Not, am I successful enough. Not, am I impressive enough. But - if I am messy and not ready and not perfect, will anyone stay with me? Or will I be left alone in the incompletion?

Will you love me anyway?

I think many of us learned very early that when we were good, when we were successful, when we were impressive, we were loved. But when we were overwhelmed, when we cried too much, when we were messy and confused and in process, people did not know how to stay. When it ached and we didn’t even know why. We needed help and couldn’t really ask. They couldn’t hold steady there. They shamed us. They shut us down. They managed us instead of being with us.

And so we learned something very dangerous:

When I am not impressive, when I am not put together, when I am not a finished product- I am alone.

And that makes the middle feel not just uncomfortable, but terrifying. And when something feels dangerous, we do not grow.

We escape. We shut down. We distract, scroll, blame, and shame. We go back to Egypt.

To the narrow places inside of us.

Or we run ahead before we are ready and pretend we are already free. Make it look Insta-friendly when it’s staged and stilted.

But real freedom is something else.

We say that Hashem took us out of Egypt not because we were great and not because we were pure, but because we were His. Because we cried out. Because there was a relationship.

In your blood, you shall live. Not when you are perfect. Not when you are ready.

בְּדָמַיִךְ חֲיִי

In your blood. In your mess. In your not-ready.

The real version of Yetzias Mitzrayim is a mess. It is the story of a relationship that was strong enough to pull people out of slavery before they were ready. We came out as slaves still being fully capable of bowing down to a golden calf.

But we came out.

Maybe that is the deepest secret of Yetziat Mitzrayim. The opposite of slavery is not freedom. The opposite of slavery is relationship. Slavery is when no one sees you, no one hears you, no one cares if you live or die.

Geulah is when someone says: I see you. I hear you. You are mine. I am not leaving you here alone. Even if you don’t deserve…

That is why the language of redemption in the Torah is not just “I will take you out,” but “I will take you to Me. ”

Geulah is not a place. Geulah is a relationship.

Geulah is not when we finally get our life together. Geulah is when we are no longer alone.

I think a lot of us this year are not ready. We are not ready for this war. We are not ready for this uncertainty. We are not ready for this level of fear and responsibility and history sitting on our shoulders. And yet we are here. We are already eating maror. We have not yet tasted the matzah.

And even matzah is the half-baked bread. It didn’t have time to rise. We took it anyway. It nourishes us in our own half-baked selves, in our half-baked process.

And maybe the redemption we are yearning for is not just political and not just military and not just historical, but personal.

The final redemption is a personal, individual process.

אתם תלוקטו אחת אחת

Each of us has to leave our own internal Egypt. Each of us has to step into the unknown.

Into love.

Into relationship. Into a different way of being.

A redemption where we are not loved only when we are strong and successful and certain, but where our brokenness, our fear, our confusion, our not-ready, our messy middle, is also held, and loved, and part of the story.

A redemption where we do not have to become perfect before we are loved. A redemption where we are loved, and that is what slowly makes us free.

Maybe freedom begins not when we are ready, but when we are not alone in the not-ready.

And maybe the most powerful thing we can do for the people we love - our spouses, our children, our friends, our clients- is not to wait until they are perfect, but to stay with them in the middle. To choose them there. To love them there.

Not when it is neat. Not when it is easy. Not when the story is finished.

But in the maror. In the crumbs. In the not-yet. In the middle. With a broken, half-baked matzah at the center of the whole thing.

Because maybe that is what redemption looks like. Not a perfect people leaving Egypt. Just a people who were not ready, who were messy and afraid, and who were loved enough to leave anyway.

And maybe that is still the story.

And maybe that is still how we become free.

I’ll end with a few words of prayer from my heart:

HaShem, You teach us that redemption will come in a generation that is כולו זכאי or כולו חייב.

We are a generation that is כולו זכאי. We yearn for You. We want connection. We want redemption. Even the least religious among us sing in shopping malls that You love us and want to give us good. עוד יותר טוב ועוד יותר טוב. Has there ever been a generation with so much yearning? With so much desire for relationship?

And we are a generation that is כולו חייב. We are broken. Confused. Our eyes have seen too much. Our hearts have been broken too many times. We are confused and disillusioned. So many of us have lost faith in ourselves and in our leaders. None of us is clean enough to stand before You tall and proud. We are humbled by our complexity and our shame.

HaShem, maybe the time has come to redeem us? Not because we finally became perfect, but because we finally realize that we are in a relationship that does not break even when we are not perfect. Please don't wait for us to get our acts together. We aren't so good at that. But we want you anyways.

שחורה אני ונאוה בנות ירושלים.

דודי הנה זה בא מדלג על ההרים.

Please jump over our deficiencies. Choose us. Love us.

Like we keep loving and choosing You.

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