“The before-times” has become short-hand in many of my social circles for norms that applied pre-pandemic, that we’ve had to modify or release over the last few years. Though I still catch myself reminiscing wistfully about mask-free potlucks and low-stakes plane travel, this week’s parsha has me reflecting on the value of not only making change – which is inevitable in life’s uncertainty – but choosing transition, the psychological mindset of embracing and adjusting to a new way of being.
In this week’s portion, B’haalot’cha, the people struggle with transition. In the post-slavery wilderness, they complain bitterly. “If only we had meat to eat,” they wail. “We remember the fish we ate in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. Now our gullets are shriveled. There is nothing at all, nothing but this Manna to look forward to!” (Numbers 11:5-6).
Though we might puzzle at why the Israelites missed slavery given how hard they worked to leave Egypt, Rabbi Elliott Kukla rationalizes, “As slaves, the people did not have to make decisions — they did not even have to choose what to eat — and they were free from any personal responsibility.” In the desert, the people taste agency, but it’s challenging to adjust to. They still yearn for the deceptive “freedom” of slavery. In other words, the people had left Egyptian servitude, but not psychological bondage — they were still thinking like slaves as opposed to thinking like free people.
Perhaps we can relate in our current times. In the past few years, we’ve all made enormous changes, both systemically and personally, in reaction to unprecedented circumstances of a global pandemic. Many (myself included) have changed roles, homes, etc. as the world has changed around us. This week, I’m asking myself: “I’ve changed so much this year –but have I made a wise transition?”
The contemporary writer William Bridges claims that there is a difference between change and transition: Change is your move to a new city or your shift to a new job. It is the birth of a new baby or the death of your father…Change is situational. Transition, on the other hand, is psychological. It is not those events, but rather the inner reorientation and self-redefinition that you have to go through in order to incorporate any of those changes into your life. Unless a transition happens, the change we yearn for won’t work, notes Bridges, “because it won’t ‘take’.” In our Torah framework, leaving Egypt was a change. Leaving slavery is a transition.
In our present moment – and in the face of changes, chosen and not – what helps you transition wisely? What do you learn about yourself as your orientation shifts to a new “normal”?
Rabbi Laura Rumpf