A small child can walk around all day with a mud-stained shirt and not care at all. He doesn't even notice it. But an adult? Even a small stain would bother him. He is mature.
At the beginning of the parashah, God tells Moshe about the first and necessary step of the exodus to freedom: ”And I will bring you out from under the burdens of Egypt.”
In the book ”Sfat Emet” it says that the intention is that the Children of Israel should no longer be able to tolerate this exile; that they will no longer have the patience for even one more day of slavery.
For 210 years, they labored in Egypt under extremely harsh conditions. But like a small child with a dirty shirt, they didn’t even realize how inappropriate it was for them to be slaves.
The first step on their path to becoming free was to develop a revulsion for slavery, to say from the depths of their souls, “Enough, we cannot tolerate this anymore!”
Perhaps what delays us most from making positive changes in our lives is the fact that we don't even feel that our situation requires correction. We’re used to it; we don’t even imagine anything better, or maybe we are afraid to change — so we accept reality as it is.
The initial condition for progress is the clear distinction between good and evil, the understanding that we deserve something better, that we need to grow. From there, the door opens to great change — to the exodus from Egypt.
May our personal and collective awareness grow, so that, together, we can emerge to true freedom!
