Leaving Egypt

"The Hypaethral Temple, Philae" by Francis Frith, 1857

One of my favorite blogs, Borei Hoshech, focuses on Jewish prayer in light of mental illness. It sounds like that could be a pretty narrow niche, but like most things in Judaism (at least for me), it is bottomless. Particularly insightful are the entries from around Passover, specifically from Missing Egypt:

I thought that once I left Egypt, which pretty much happened several years ago, things would be easy. The Promised Land glimmered hopefully in the not-too-distant distance. The Promised Land of being able to go to sleep at night, get up in the morning, and do something useful, fulfilling, and interesting with my day in between. The Promised Land of a husband, children, and a full professional and communal life. But it turns out that there is a vast desert between slavery and the Promised Land. I am traversing that desert right now.

As for me, I don’t even know whether I am still in Egypt or if I have made it to the desert. Maybe thinking about it means I’m in the desert? Years from now, I’ll have the time and perspective to be able to look back and pinpoint where exactly I was as I wrote this, and see how far I’ve come.