You As Pharaoh

For the past few weeks, Jews in the weekly Torah portions have been reading about their time as slaves in Egypt and their being freed. Jews are commanded to constantly remember their slavery. One of the universal messages of remembering is the lesson that while we are no longer physical slaves, we are still slaves.

This time the Pharaoh is us and the slavery is of the self-imposed spiritual and emotional variety. That means the only one who can free you is you. We hold ourselves back from climbing our mountain that will lead us to being the person we were created to become.

We hold ourselves back with the “I can’ts” (see the inner-speak series). How we speak to our self and about our self translates into who we are. Believe in yourself, if you don’t, no one else will, and if you don’t why should they?

“Think good and it will be good.” – Rabbi Menachem Mendel

“You become what you think, even if you don’t think so.” – Dr. Morris Mandel

An example of the “I Can” way to speak to yourself

“I am only one, But still I am one. I cannot do everything, But still I can do something; And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.” – Edward Everett Hale