With Pesach coming up, I learned a great lesson about myself and my people from my Torah podcast that I would like to share.
Hashem took the Jews out of Egypt and most of us would only think that this meant he physically took us out, but he also took us out of our bad lifestyle that we adapted in Egypt. The Gemara says that in Egypt people were eating “like a chicken”-all day long.The Egyptians would have parties centered around eating, and eventually after they would get full, they would vomit so they could eat more. The Jews would clean up after them, so they were very familiar with the process. They saw how they ate glutinously and began to do the same. So Moshe asked Hashem to give them only enough food so that they could cure this bad habit. The “manah” came down once a day and they had a limited amount of it-only what was essential. He wanted them to learn two things. First, that having too much of something is not always good. Second, if we assimilate and conform to society we’ll end up being followers that could possibly follow the wrong path. However, if we change our ways and become our own people we can be leaders headed on the right track.
We should all take these lessons and apply them to our lives everyday. As Jews, we have nations around us that have tried to pull us away from our religion, but we need to know that if we are proud of our religion and know how to be strong, we can keep our faith alive.
Shabbat Shalom and have a Happy Pesach!