What's so special about this generation of Jewry?

This essay explores 3 ideas:

1. The relevance of Yetziat Mitzraim (the Exodus from Egypt) to modern man.

2. The value of “limitation” in one’s personal life.

3. The significance of the current generation of Jewry over all preceding generations.

CHAPTER ONE

The bible states “Just as in the days of leaving Egypt [there was miracles], so too [when Moshiach comes] there will be miracles”.

The Zohar asks, somewhat uncharacteristically, a textual question. We know that the Jews left Egypt in one day, if so, why does the verse employ the usage of plural “days” instead of the singular “day”?

The answer offered by Chassidus is the following:

Leaving Egypt is not, as one would suppose, a one and done event. Instead it is an ongoing process in one’s personal life. The Hebrew word for Egypt is Mitzrayim. The word Mitzrayim is etymologically similar to the word Meitzarim. Meitzarim means limitation. Thus Yetziat Mitzrayim would compute into Yetziat Meitzarim, meaning breaking free of one’s own shortcomings. The exodus of Egypt would be more properly translated as the exodus from one’s own Egypt. 

Practically speaking this means that quite often in a Jew’s daily service of God, they may experience an unwillingness to engage in what God requests of them. Obviously this unwillingness can rear its ugly head at any time. Yet when a Jew breaks free from their limitations and smashes this wall of obstruction and performs the act that God desires, they have experienced their own intimate exodus from Egypt.

Clearly then Yetziat Mitzrayim is not a historical event that transpired in the murky eons of the past but rather a shockingly relevant and current experience that needs to be accessed and engaged in on a daily basis.

Chassidus then develops this concept further. Not just is the Exodus a static daily exercise, but it is in fact an accelerating experience. Breaking one’s limitations becomes a catalyst for spiritual maturation necessitating the transcendence of increasingly refined and mature personal limitations. In other words if on Sunday they surpassed themselves beyond what they thought possible and gave a thousand dollars to charity, then on Monday their new boundary is giving a thousand and one dollars to charity; that is the new limitation that they must transcend.

Not just is this true on an individual scale, but in fact it applies to the world as a whole. Starting from our creation as a people on Mount Sinai, each era of Jewry has been engaging in progressively deeper and more powerful refinement of the world. As the coarse battlegrounds of yesterday turn into the standardized norms of today, today’s battles revolve around yet more refined areas of the human experience that need to be purified and transcended. Paving the way for tomorrow’s as of yet unimagined horizons.

[Steven pinker has recently published a book called "The better angels of our Nature". He describes it as follows: We’ve all had the experience of reading about a bloody war or shocking crime and asking, “What is the world coming to?” But we seldom ask, “How bad was the world in the past?” 

In this startling new book, the bestselling cognitive scientist Steven Pinker shows that the world of the past was much worse. With the help of more than a hundred graphs and maps, Pinker presents some astonishing numbers. Tribal warfare was nine times as deadly as war and genocide in the 20th century. The murder rate of Medieval Europe was more than thirty times what it is today. Slavery, sadistic punishments, and frivolous executions were unexceptionable features of life for millennia, then suddenly were targeted for abolition.  Wars between developed countries have vanished, and even in the developing world, wars kill a fraction of the people they did a few decades ago. Rape, battering, hate crimes, deadly riots, child abuse, cruelty to animals—all substantially down.] 

Thus the whole of Jewish history can be seen as a generational chain spiraling into the heavens and bringing increasingly loftier gradations of holiness into this world. The climax of this will be in the times of Moshiach when the ultimate transcendence of all human limitation will be realized as God will reveal Himself to us in all his glory.

CHAPTER TWO

According to our analysis that each generation is increasingly mature and spiritually sensitive, our current era should be the most advanced and developed in history. Yet we see that in fact, it is quite the opposite.

What is our area of expertise that surpasses previous eras of Jewry? Is it Talmudic scholarship and halakhik knowledge?  Not likely. Whereas in the past, knowing all of Shas (an acronym for all 60 volumes of the Talmud), was simply a prerequisite for entry into higher level study groups and yeshivot, today one would be hard pressed to find 50 rabbis who know the entire Talmud cold. Additionally, the evolution of Torah study is structured in a way that the authority of each generation of the tradition has increasingly less legislative power and credence. Tannaim ,earlier Talmudists, trump Amoraim ,later Talmudists, and Achronim, rabbinic scholars from roughly 1600 and on, cannot generally argue with Rishonim, rabbis from roughly 1000 to 1600.

Nor is it sainthood or stronger leadership; not for nothing has this post-holocaust generation been called a “dor yasom”, an orphaned generation.

Neither is it our camaraderie or strong Jewish unity. Unfortunately, Judaism has never been more fractious with so many divisions and groups.

Can we even find one Mitzvah in which we shine over all preceding generations? And even if we could, would that justify classifying our era as more refined then all of the generations of Jews who came before us?

That’s just within Judaism. But the world at large has changed as well. The secularism of modern technological man combined with society’s utter embrace of the flesh and material pleasures have produced an environment of immeasurable temptation and seduction. Add to that the accessibility and ease with which such secularism and materialism is obtained thanks to modern technology and current attitudes of acceptance and individualism, and one begins to imagine the challenges facing the 21^st century spiritual-religious Jew. 

Chassidus answers this in a spectacular way. Indeed we possess nothing that other generations did not do better and stronger with more widespread participation. Rather the secret ingredient that we have that no other era had, is precisely our weakness. Our depth lies in our shallowness. Our superiority is in our inferiority.

Meaning, despite it all we serve Him with strength and devotion. We still believe in God and seek to fulfill his divine plan for the world called Torah and Mitzvot. The immutable faith and commitment found in the 21^st century spiritual-religious Jew is truly astonishing and shocking.

This then is our profundity and innovation within Judaism. We are a living testament to its versatility and timeless truth. At the end of the day, Chassidus says, we are basically serving God without limitation. To withstand all the trials and tribulations facing us today and to remain Torah-true Jews is to invest oneself in Judaism without qualification or limitation.