As we sat at our Seder tables this week, we rehearsed the cruelties, which the Egyptians inflicted on our people for over 400 years. The Pharaoh ordered the midwives to drown all Jewish male infants. He commanded our ancestors to labor under inhumane conditions to build his palaces and storehouses. He ordered his taskmasters to whip them severely, if they failed to produce their daily quota.

Yet, nowhere in the Haggadah are we commanded to take revenge on the Egyptians nor to bear any animosity toward them. In fact, our Torah explicitly commands us: “Do not hate an Egyptian, because you were strangers in his land.” (Deut. 23:9)

Rabbi Harold Kushner has just penned a new book, Living a Life that Matters, with the subtitle, Resolving the Conflict between Conscience and Success. In it, he explains the reason why we should not hate the Egyptians. It is not because they deserve our forgiveness. We can never condone the barbarism we suffered at their hands

Rather, it is to help up unload painful mental baggage. We deserve better than to be mired in the bitterness of the past. As long as we play the role of victim and allow our souls to be corroded by anger, we remain slaves to the Egyptians. Only when we can rid ourselves of this anger, can we be truly free men and women. Kushner points out that, at the Seder, we taste the bitter herb recalling our painful servitude. But we do not linger with our bitterness. Soon, therefore, we override the bitter taste with matzah and wine, symbols of liberation and freedom.

Kushner insightfully notes that holding a grudge and craving revenge really reflect our need to reclaim power. Victimhood means powerlessness. It reduces us to a feeling of insignificance that we can't tolerate. We falsely believe that we will rid ourselves of this sense of helplessness by striking back. By doing so, we think that we will regain a sense of importance.

Indeed, the central theme of Kushner's book is that all of us want to live lives that count, lives that matter. However, we often pursue means to accomplish this goal that leave us feeling empty. In the opening chapter, he describes the two worlds which all of us inhabit. One is the world of work and commerce, eating, working, and paying our bills. It honors people who are attractive and productive. It loves winners and shuns loser. Worldly success is the prized goal here.

It is the same need that drives us to acquire status symbols, like prestigious titles, corner offices and first-class travel, or to see our names in prominent, bold newspaper headlines for some stunning achievement. It causes us great pleasure when an important person recognizes us and utterly devastates us when that person overlooks or ignores us.

It also explains why so many spend our lives trying to get the attention of our parents but fail to do so. Rabbi Kushner recalls paying a condolence call on a congregant, whose father had just died. The congregant began to cry and to open up to Rabbi Kushner. He reported, that for his entire life, he wanted to hear his father say he was proud of him. He always received good grades in school, never got into trouble, went to a fine college, and lives in a nice home with a wonderful family. Yet never once, did his father take notice of him and commend him for any of these attainments.

This need to feel important also can drive people to dishonesty in their businesses and professions. The obsession to be clever and shrewd, to make top dollars and become No. 1 in one's field, can often lead one to cheat and steal.

It can even lead to murder. Assassins like Lee Harvey Oswald and James Earl Ray also wanted to be recognized. They killed an American president and a civil rights hero to prove that the world was wrong in not taking them seriously. They wanted to show us that by murdering national figures, they are powerful enough to change history. Such is the one world we inhabit.

Yet there is another one. That other is a world of faith, the world of the spirit. Here people are honored for compassion, not competition. Here sacrifice and self-restraint are prized. We win in this world by helping our neighbors and sharing with them, rather than by discovering their weakness and defeating them.

Rabbi Kushner illustrates how Jacob, the Biblical patriarch, eventually managed to negotiate successfully between these two worlds. His mother, Rebekah, after a difficult pregnancy, gave birth to twins. Esau, older by a few minutes, was a coarse, brutish, macho character, who loved to hunt. Jacob, by contrast, was a quiet, contemplative type.

Yet there was also a less worthy side to Jacob. He was born holding on to Esau's heel, his ekev. From this word, the name Jacob is derived. Thus, from the beginning of his life, we learn that Jacob is a heal-grabber, a tripper-upper, a manipulator, a trickster.

First, he trades a mess of lentil soup for Esau's birthright, thus giving him a larger share of Isaac's estate. Then Jacob deceives his father into bestowing the patriarchal blessing on him, rather than on Esau, the first-born, to whom it belongs.

The blessing once given can not be withdrawn. Esau is furious over this loss and threatens to kill Jacob. Rebekah then urges Jacob to flee to the home of Laban, her brother, in another country. Jacob begins to feel a split in his soul. He is troubled by his desire to get something he desperately wants through conniving, cheating and craftiness.

On his first night of his journey, he lies down on the desert sand and dreams of a ladder with angels going up and down on it. The ladder bridges heaven and earth. It represents the distance between the manipulative Jacob, as he is, and the spiritually mature Jacob, as he would aspire to become. When he enters Laban's territory, he falls immediately in love with Rachel, Laban's daughter and Jacob's first cousin. He wants to marry Rachel, but lacks the money to pay the bride price to her father, which was a custom then.

He agrees to work seven years for Laban at no pay to win Rachel's hand. On the wedding night, Laban substitutes Leah, his older, less attractive daughter, for Rachel. Later, Laban then tells him that he must promise to work another seven years –a total of 14- before he will allow Rachel to marry him. Now having been the trickster himself, Jacob becomes the object of trickery.

During these years, Jacob has economically prospered while in Laban's custody. He feels the need to leave Laban, take his family and flocks and return home. He sends the women, children and animals across the river. After night falls, he is alone on the far side of the river.

Suddenly a mysterious figure assaults him and struggles with him until daybreak. Commentators differ about the identity of the assailant. Kushner sees him as a part of Jacob himself. The attacker is Jacob's conscience. The battle is between that part of him that wins by cleverness and fraud and that part of him which wants to become exemplary and noble.

Many of us can identify with Jacob's struggle. We, too, are split personalities. Part of us wants to go the expedient route and the other part wants to follow the more demanding and ethical one. After the end of the struggle, God gives Jacob a new name, Israel, which reflects his better nature. Having been defeated by his conscience, Jacob leaves the battle and limps.

His name change, however, is not a permanent one. Sometimes he will be called Jacob; at other times Israel. Jacob is a better person, but he is not an angel. Sometimes his base impulses will prevail; at other times, he will heed the voice of God. Yet, Jacob finds a new way to harmonize his two conflicting natures. In so doing, he has become a man of integrity.

We can all identify with Jacob's encounter with his conscience. We are basically decent, law-abiding people. Yet, we sometimes succumb to violating our own moral standards, usually to gain an advantage over other people and feel self-important.

In the latter part of this book, Kushner proposes better ways for our lives to achieve significance. It is not by conniving, outsmarting, and cheating, but by embracing higher values. One way is to offer genuine love and true friendship to family members and friends. By doing so, we bring God into a world that would otherwise be a pit of selfishness and loneliness.

Another way is to become the “best actor in a supporting role.” Being a supporting actor in another person's play means that we are not in the spotlight. We are not the center of attention. Rather we are doing things that shape and drive the plot. For example, if a friend is undergoing chemotherapy, we can visit her, cook for her and drive her to an appointment. Her life is a drama, as she struggles to survive. We remain in the background to make certain things turn out well. Yet by doing so, we pursue a life that matters.

Kushner summarizes the thesis of his book in these words:

One of the important messages I get from my religious view of life is that, when I do something kind and thoughtful, or when I don't do something mean and hurtful—the temptation I resist, the angry words I don't speak—and nobody applauds me for it, Somebody (God) knows what I've done. The assurance that how I earn and spend my money matters at the highest level, that what sort of language I use with my children and whom I sleep with affect the world in some small but real way, invests my life with significance. I matter.

May Rabbi Kushner's message inspire all of us, at this holiday season, to inhabit the word of higher values, and, in so doing, live a life that matters.

Amen.

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