Parashat Vaera tells of the process of Yetziat Mitzrayim, how Hashem punished the Egyptians until Pharaoh finally let Beneh Yisrael leave.
This story is all about freedom, about our ancestors’ release from the chains of bondage and being free.
To help us understand the true meaning of the concept of “freedom,” let us look at one of the first mitzvot that Beneh Yisrael were commanded after leaving Egypt – the mitzvah of tefillin. What makes this mitzvah so special, that it was chosen to be one of the first mitzvot given to our ancestors when they were freed from slavery?
The tefillin consist of two boxes – the tefillin shel yad, which is worn on the arm, and the tefillin shel rosh, which is worn on the head. The tefillin she yad is a single box, containing one piece of parchment, whereas the tefillin shel rosh consists of four separate compartments, each with its own parchment.
The five boxes represent the five senses. The single box of the tefillin shel yad corresponds to the sense we have in our hand – the sense of touch – and the four compartments of the tefillin shel rosh correspond to the four senses of the head: sight, smell, taste, and sound.
What is all this about? Why do the tefillin represents the five senses?
The five senses reflect a person’s true self, who he really is.
Our five senses are all our own. Nobody can touch, smell, hear, see or taste for us. We do all this only on our own. The purpose of tefillin is to help us focus on our unique identity, on who we really are, on our true selves. When we wear tefillin, we are to reconnect with our “senses” – with our true identity.
The greatest freedom is the freedom to be ourselves, without being tied down to anything or anybody else. True freedom is the freedom to be who really are, rather than living to be what somebody else wants to be. And so as soon as Beneh Yisrael left Egypt and became free, they were given the mitzvah of tefillin, which teaches us how to be truly free.
This can be a difficult challenge here in our wonderful community. Being part of our community means that we are very close with one another, we know a great deal about what others are doing, we do a lot of things together, and we are there to help one another. These are all beautiful and precious benefits of community life. However, this can also impose an enormous burden of pressure. People feel pressured to live a certain way – to dress a certain way, to live in a certain kind of home, to drive a certain kind of car, to spend vacations in a certain way – in order to meet perceived communal expectations.
A well-known technician in the community once received a call from a woman in the community to repair a certain appliance in her home. He arrived in the evening, and he saw that there was no car in the driveway, the curtains were drawn, and the lights were all turned off. It looked like there was nobody home. He was very perplexed, because the woman had called him to come do a repair.
He knocked on the door, and the woman opened it and quickly invited him inside. When he asked about why it looked like nobody was home, she explained that it was vacation season, and she didn’t want anybody to know that her family wasn’t going away for vacation. So they parked the car somewhere else and kept all the lights off.
This is the opposite of freedom. This is a life that is dictated by other people.
A famous writer said: “Dance like nobody's watching; love like you've never been hurt. Sing like nobody's listening; live like it's heaven on earth.”
In order to truly live, we need to live our own lives, not somebody else’s life. Of course, we can and should gain inspiration, motivation and knowledge from other people. But this should be for the purpose of being who we are supposed to be, in order to live for the unique purpose for which we are placed here on earth.
If we live this way, then we are truly free.