There are questions that people ask when they have experienced great disappointment. One such question, a theological one, is, “What did I do to deserve this? What sin have I committed that warrants such a painful punishment?”

In situations where such questions are asked in reaction to truly tragic circumstances, they are quite poignant, even heartrending. “What have I done to deserve such punishment? Haven’t I been a good person? Why did God do this to me?”

There is a parallel set of questions that can be asked in response to happy events such as great professional accomplishments, successful recovery from illness, and family celebrations. Such questions include, “What did I do to deserve such success? Why am I being rewarded so marvelously? How can I thank God for such blessings?”

But those questions are seldom asked.

As we read the recent, current, and upcoming weekly Torah portions, the thoughtful student cannot help but ask both sets of questions. First, “What did the children of Israel do to deserve the harsh punishment of centuries of slavery? What horrible sins kindled God’s wrath and resulted in such brutal suffering?”

And second, perhaps more puzzling, are the parallel questions: “What did the enslaved people do to cause God to finally remember them? What, after years of unbearable bondage, earned them, in the end, their glorious freedom?”

Many have raised these questions, and some have found no answer except to defer to the inscrutable plans of the Almighty, who, long before the exile in Egypt, promised Abraham that his descendants would spend time as strangers in a land not theirs, and suffer slavery and torture, but eventually would be remembered and redeemed.

In his excellent overview of the works of the great traditional Torah commentaries, Binah B’Mikra, Rabbi Issachar Jacobson surveys several approaches to the second set of questions, all addressed to describing the transformations of the enslaved people that earned them their ultimate redemption.

I will confine this column to one of these approaches as presented by Rabbi Jacobson in his overview of this week’s Parashat Bo (Exodus 10:1-13:16).

It is in this week’s parsha that we read of Korban Pesach, the sacrifice of the paschal lamb, and the consumption of its meat in the context of a festive meal, celebrated by groups of family and neighbors, and subject to various rules and regulations. This was the Pesach Mitzrayim, the Passover ritual followed once in history, by the yet enslaved children of Israel. It is also the precursor of the Pesach Dorot, the Passover ritual for all future Jewish generations, which we know today as the Passover Seder.

The details of the commandment to prepare the paschal lamb are many, but one telling phrase describes the first step of the process with the words “mishchu ukechu lachem tzon lemishpechoseichem, pull out/extract and take for yourselves sheep for your families.” (Exodus 12:21)

The Mechilta, a midrash halacha, understands the word mishchu as “extract yourselves, detach yourselves” from all the cultural surroundings in which you have been imprisoned. Thus, “Rabbi Yosi of the Galilee translates: Detach yourselves from idolatry and attach yourselves to the Lord’s commandments.” 

Were the Hebrew slaves indeed idol worshippers? Nowhere in the biblical selections we have been reading is there any evidence that this was true. But here is the passage in the Book of Ezekiel that supports this errant behavior on the part of the helpless slaves:

“On that day, I (the Lord) stretched out My hand to them to deliver them from Egypt to the land that I have surveyed for them, a land flowing with milk and honey, most precious of all lands. I said to them: Let each of you cast aside the abominations that you witness and do not defile yourselves by the idols of Egypt. I am the Lord your God! But you resisted me and failed to heed me. You cast aside neither your visual abominations nor your Egyptian idols, so that I considered pouring out My wrath upon them, and expending My rage upon them, but to preserve my Name that it not be profaned in the eyes of the nations among whom they dwelled, that I revealed Myself to them, delivered them from the land of Egypt and led them to the wilderness.” (Ezekiel 20:6-10, my free translation)

Expanding upon this verse, Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenberg, Rav of Nikolsberg in the nineteenth century and author of HaKtav V’HaKabbalah, develops the approach which blames idol worship and participation in the decadent culture of ancient Egypt for the duration and extent of enslavement. 

The author of HaKtav V’Hakabbalah continues by introducing the concept of teshuvah, abandonment of the sinful and returning to the ways of the Almighty. The phrase mishchu ukechu is now the epitome of the processes of repentance and atonement: “Detach and attach!” Depart from your past, abandon your previous lifestyles, and connect through the Korban Pesach, the Passover ritual so steeped in symbolism; attach yourselves to your Father in Heaven and to all other who attach themselves to Him.

Rabbi Mecklenberg emphasizes the risks that detachment posed for the desperate slaves. Collecting and gathering sheep and goats for the korban meant open defiance of the surrounding culture of idol worship which considered these types of animals its deity.

Detachment from the culture at large is typically condemned as betrayal and treachery by the proponents of that culture. The risks of teshuvah are often overwhelming, and the need for courage is supreme.

Thus, besides the lessons of detachment and attachment, intrinsic to the festival of Pesach and all its accompanying practices and festivities is the need for strength. True bravery is paramount. “No gain without pain” becomes an apt motto for Pesach for all of us, and a challenge to our natural reluctance to detach from previous habits. Equally challenging is attachment to either a previous set of practices that we have wrongfully abandoned and to which we must return with renewed dedication, or to a set of new practices that we must strive to learn and integrate into our religious repertoire.

The central role of heroism in the teshuvah process often is not recognized. To correct that major oversight we must learn to admire those in our community who have heroically detached themselves from parts of their past and attached themselves to Torah and mitzvot. Moreover, each of us, no matter our religious backgrounds, must muster the heroic capabilities that lie deep within us, but which we all possess, as we attempt to free ourselves from the ways of Mitzrayim and attach ourselves to the ways of Yerushalayim.

Pesach is approaching sooner than you think!