“Say, therefore, to the Israelite people: I am the Lord. I will free you from the labors of the Egyptians and deliver you from their bondage. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and through extraordinary chastisements. And I will take you to be My people, and I will be your God…I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob…”
But when Moses told this to the Israelites, they would not listen to Moses, their spirits crushed by cruel bondage.” Exodus 6: 6-9.
Our reading this week begins with God promising the Israelites, through
five famous verbs, that God would save them. The promises all turned out to be true. Every year at our seders, we celebrate these five verbs of redemption through the four cups of wine and the fifth cup for Elijah and Miriam. Famously, however, the Hebrew slaves who were the intended audience for this reassurance could not take it in. Why not? Because of Abraham Maslow.
In 1943 Abraham Maslow, an American psychologist, wrote a paper entitled “A Theory of Human Motivation” in which he argued that there is a hierarchy of needs. Before we can get to spiritual liberation (the apex of the pyramid), we need to feel safe, secure and protected (the base of the pyramid). All of us have experienced the truth of Maslow’s hierarchy if you have ever attended an outdoor burial in January in New England. It does not matter how much you love the person being laid to their rest, when you are at the graveside, all you want is to conclude the burial as quickly as possible and get back into a warm car.
The Israelites could not take in promises of liberation when their reality on the ground was so painful.  What about us? In Hallel, we thank God, but only after we recover from illness or serious threat. What does Maslow’s hierarchy of needs say to us, today? How do we provide spiritual comfort to people whose physical realities remain challenging with no ready solution?