And every year, we read the story for ourselves and our children, to remind us, anticipating the feast that goes along with the event.

But, just a thought, do we really internalize what happened as we should ?
2)

Do we really identify with any more than a surface understanding, what this meant to them and what it needs to mean for us.

3400 years ago, our people huddled in their homes in Goshen, waiting for the night to pass, having prepared - 3)

having packed up all the things they wanted to take with them, having put aside foods, planning for the trip they were told they would have shortly. Imagine the fear of what was happening outside their doors.
4)

Imagine the concern of what would happen the next day, fear of the unknown, fear of all the scenarios that probably went though their minds, almost a fight between the wanted prospect of freedom and 5)

the fear of what Egypt would do, and the hardships ahead, and would they die in the desert.

They were being asked to give up the security of their homes, the only lives they knew, and sure, they had to pay taxes that they received no benefit from, and 6)

had few freedoms of choice in. Egypt, and were periodically persecuted, but they knew how to live and survive there. Their lives were structured to fit their circumstance and their survival tactics had become habits.
7)

And they were being asked to follow some guy (Moshe) who could not even speak all that well, away from everything they knew, to face a long, hard, march, to go out of Egypt into the desert, where there may not be even food to sustain them and their families.
8)

Scary. See ourselves as them. Feel their fear. Feel their worry.

And what was all this for - all the fear, the sacrifice, It was for 2 purposes.

(1). To take a people away from the domination and control of another people, and 9)

(2) To create a distinct and special people of them where they could freely express their own culture, have their own system of laws and beliefs, and that is the definition of freedom.
10)

Not just to be a free people, but first to be a people, a nation, a holy nation of people who understood that “freedom” meant maturity and responsibility.

That is also the purpose of Zionism.
11)

Not to simply be free of persecution, but to be culturally free as a nation and to develop as a Jewish nation defined by its unique history, beliefs, laws, traditions, and sensibilities. - 12)

and to develop to be a light unto the nations, not just another copy of slave thinking and immitation.

And today, just like our ancestors 3400 years ago that clung to what was familiar, even when it was slavery and feared the future,
13)

if you look at many of the issues that divide Jews, these are issues from the Diaspora adaptions to being a persecuted people, and too many cling to them, to customs,
14)

to attitiudes that have been called a “Ghetto mentality, rather than understanding how moving on Jewishly could be a great thing. 15)

So, think about it. We may still have more in common with those slaves on the verge of a freedom they did not really understand, than we might believe.

And that is why we celebrate this holiday. And that is how, if we do this right, we must see ourselves. 16)

And, let’s be frank. Are we Jews a free people yet today

or are we still concerned with, and comfortable with, mimicking others and not learning what we can be?

Are we still slaves?

המהפכה נמשכת" 17)