Why each generation must know our Exodus - comment

Because there is always an Egypt to leave. Egypt is not a place, it is the thing from which we need to emerge. Egypt is what forces us to examine ourselves, to see if we are capable of taking our destiny into our own hands. 

Egypt is a reminder that reality is not a given; it is the decisions we make, the story we tell, and our ability to choose our own path in life. The journey is not measured in miles, it is measured by our ability to choose hope over despair, courage over resignation, the place we want to reach and not the place we have been forced into by circumstances. 

People too often tell themselves, “But there is no choice,” the Haggadah answers them: there is always a choice.

The Bible tells us that when Moses was a young man, still an Egyptian prince and not yet the leader of the Jewish people, he saw an Egyptian taskmaster beating a Jewish slave. Moses looked around and decided to do something: “And he turned this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man, he smote the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.” 

Wait, what does it mean “and he saw that there was no man”? They are in the largest construction site of the ancient world, clearly there are thousands of people there around them.

Responding to injustice

So what’s going on? The answer, or at least the interpretation I prefer, is that if you see injustice, if you see cruelty, and you do not react, you do not take any action to prevent it, you are not entitled to the title “man” (or human). You may be a human being, but there is a basic human component missing in you. When Moses is the only one who reacts to injustice, he becomes a man. A leader is born.

The Haggadah calls on you to be a leader. Leaders of a nation, leaders of a community, leaders of a family, leaders of ideas. Today, perhaps more than ever before, the Jewish people need us all to be leaders – to look around and see that it is our responsibility to stand up, our responsibility to speak out, our responsibility to act. 

We have seen that heroism, that decision to be a leader, in our soldiers and officers fighting every day to restore security to Israel. We have seen it in countless Jews who have stood up for Israel across the world. We have seen it in community leaders across Israel who stepped in where the government failed to. 

The people of Israel have had a terrible year, perhaps the worst in our generation. While the people of Israel are no longer slaves, this Pessah cannot be complete without those members of our family who are not free, those who are still being held hostage by Hamas in Gaza. Each of us must be a leader, each of us must do all that we can to bring them home. We cannot truly be free, until all of us are free.

To emerge from this Egypt, just as our ancestors did, we have to bring every hostage home, free every hostage from captivity. After that, we will emerge from this Egypt, just as our ancestors did before us. And when we do, we will choose a path toward a better future.•