Splitting the Sea of Our Consciousness
SPLITTING THE SEA OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Does it ever happen to you, that you see someone all the time, but when you finally get to know them they suddenly look different? Your newfound understanding and appreciation of them alters the way you see them, changing their face and transforming their whole demeanor. This is exactly what the Messianic era is about.
The "second days" of Passover - the tail end that is observed as a full Holiday like the first 2 days - commemorate the Splitting of the Sea. A week after the Jews exited Egypt, the second stage of their Exodus occurred - and we commemorate that each year at the end of Passover. But there's more to the celebration of the 7th day of Passover.
Passover is a commemoration of the past, an experience in the present and also a hope for the future. According to the Chassidic mystics, the first half of Passover commemorates a redemption of the past - the Exodus from Egypt - and the second half celebrates the future redemption.
The miracle of the splitting of the sea was not only utilitarian. Contrary to public perception, the Jews never actually crossed the Sea of Reads. They arced back and disembarked on the same side as they had entered. So the goal wasn't purely practical, but spiritual.
At the sea, the Jews had a transcendent experience of the Divine, where, according to the Talmud, the simplest Jew saw what even the greatest prophets did not. The sea splitting was a material reflection of this experience.
The land and sea are metaphors for our consciousness. Generally, we see the world through our limited earthly vision. We are stuck in a "dry land" materialistic reality of ego and jealousy that is plagued with poverty and illness, war and hate. Judaism is an attempt to liberate the world from this experience and promote an immersive "sea" reality - a divine consciousness that alters our perception of ourselves, others and the entire world. Each Mitzvah is a partial splitting of the sea, drawing back the shades and allowing the divine spirit to seep into our reality. When we truly get to know the inner workings of the world, we see it in an entirely different light.
The Messianic age - when the seas of G-d-consciousness are split wide open - is a time when we experience the redeemed world.
While the Jews had left Egypt a week prior, Egypt hadn't left them. The splitting of the sea was intended to schlep them out of their sunken Egyptian mindset and open them up to a higher consciousness, a divine consciousness. The world of the sea - the unknowable sublime divine reality - split open before them, revealing a G-dly vision of the world, and created a new dry land - new pathways of consciousness. The Jewish people then had a fleeting experience of the Messianic age.
Each year on its anniversary, we remember this and attempt to make that momentary experience an established reality. There's a beautiful custom established by the Baal Shem Tov to finish Passover with the Meal of Moshiach - a 'Seder' of sorts, to harness the spirit of freedom and redemption of Passover and channel it as a force of positive change in the world. We translate the Exodus of the past into the present and work on creating a better future - a redeemed world, where we are liberated from jealousy and hate, poverty and illness, ego and anxiety.
by Menashe Wolf
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