So first some background: how did the Jews end up as slaves in Egypt?

The story goes that in ancient times this guy Abraham started to realize that the statues his friends worshipped were just statues. The idea of a spiritual—rather than physical—God inspired him to leave his family (in the Torah he really just dips out in the middle of the night) and begin a new people in Canaan, the land that would become Israel. Abraham hit up God for guidance and God promised that he would give rise to a great nation, but that his "descendants will dwell for a time in a land that is not their own, and they will be enslaved and afflicted for four hundred years; however...afterwards they shall leave with great wealth."

The legend goes that this promise has sustained the Jewish people. For not only one enemy has risen against the Jews, but every few generations there are those who relight that fire; there is literally a word specifically for prejudice against Jewish people. We're like that underdog team in every sports movie.

Anyways, in the years that the Jews lived in Egypt, numbers grew, and soon the Jewish community became the People of Israel. Pharaoh was freaked out by this, so he enslaved us. We were forced to build pyramids and the like. The Egyptians feared that even as slaves, the Israelites might grow strong and rebel, so Pharaoh decreed that all Israelite baby boys should be drowned.

At this point God stepped in, by speaking to Moses via a burning bush (literally). God told Moses to demand that Pharaoh release the Jews, and explained that things would go super badly if Pharaoh didn't listen.

Naturally, Pharaoh didn't listen, and so God hit Egypt with 10 plagues, each increasingly worse.

Passover is one of the most meaningful holidays in Jewish culture not only because we celebrate liberation, but also we celebrate the fact that God himself—not an angel or prophet—acted to free the Jewish people and lead us to Israel.


haggadah Section: Maggid - Beginning