A long, long time ago, in a land that's far away called Egypt, the Jewish people, our people were enlsaved. Enslaved means you have to work for free without any pay and do whatever the people in charge tell you to. The Egyptians told the Jewish people to do a lot of really unfair things, like working to make bricks out of straw and use those bricks to make Pyramids. The Egyptians made the Jewish people their slaves for years and years. But they were also afraid of the Jewish people. They worried that, if the Jewish people got too strong or too powerful, they might overthrow the Egyptians and take charge. So the Pharoh, which is the king of the Egyptians, made a law that all Jewish baby boys would be killed. 

Meanwhile, a Jewish woman had a baby. She was very scared the baby would be hurt, so she and her daughter wrapped the baby in a basket and sent him floating down a river. The Pharoh's daughter found the baby and raised him as an Egyptian, calling him Moses. 

When Moses grew up, he was upset by all the injustice he saw and how unfairly the Jewish people, his people, were being treated by the Egyptians. One day, he broke the law and stopped an Egyptian from hurting a Jewish worker. Afraid he would be punished, he ran into the desert to hide. 

While he was in the desert, God spoke to Moses in the form of a miraculous burning bush. God told Moses that God had chosen him to free the Jewish people from slavery and that God would use miracles through Moses to show the whole world how powerful He is. 

God did free the Jewish people using amazing and wonderous and terrifying miracles, and every year we celebrate God freeing the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt by celebrating Passover. 


haggadah Section: Introduction