There is a common chasidic teaching that Mitzrayim, the Hebrew word for Egypt, is built on the root of tzar or "narrow." Ancient Mitzrayim/Egypt was a narrow strip of settlement along the Nile. In our own lives, Mitzrayim is the narrow place that we might feel in ourselves whenever we are stuck, constrained, or pressed into being who we are not. Any reality or self-image we cannot seem to escape from, or any version of ourselves that someone else forces on us and traps us in.
Why is it so hard to escape, to "leave Egypt"? Pharoah, in the chasidic understanding, is the name for that force or voice that says: You cannot leave. Pharoah is the voice of "decree", of the edict that defines things once and for all. The letters of Pharoah in Hebrew are the same as the word para', which means to collect payment. "Pharaoh" is the part of us that says: Even if you don't like it, you owe me to be this way, to stay in this situation, to keep working and droning on the same as always.
Pharoah can point to the hard part of what is out there beyond Mitzrayim: the seemingly uncrossable sea, the vast desert. Why leave when that's what is waiting?
The going-out from Mitzrayim did not start until other voices came on the scene, voices of Moshe, Aharon, and Miryam who dared to suggest that Pharoah could be defeated. We might look to the Exodus story for the confidence that there is another voice in our own mind or heart that says: If I take a step forward in a new direction, the sea will part. The desert will turn out to be a difficult place, true, but also a place of community and revelation.
Our individual Mitzrayim-s come in all sizes. Big problems in our lives, in our relationships, in our health — where the will to change may be one thing we need, though not the only thing. But Mitzrayim can be on the micro level as well. Bad habits, annoying patterns in important relationships, small ways of being inconsiderate — these too "plague" us. Each of us on Pesach is obligated to see how we are in Egypt, and to make an effort at the first step to go out — not to let Pharoah's voice overpower that of Moshe, Aharon, and Miryam.
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