Why did the Israelites wander for a generation in the wilderness? It was clear to God that the Israelites who had been enslaved in Egypt were unprepared to be free. And why? Because the Egyptians had taken away their sense of self. By insinuating enslavement into the lives of the Israelites, the oppressors had removed their ability even to think of themselves as free and autonomous human beings.

When any government seeks to dismiss the capacity of a person to think of herself as a free and autonomous human being, that government wants to take us back to Egypt. We worked too hard to be free to go back, and there is no reason to wander in another wilderness when that freedom is already at hand. Let this cup of liberation remind us that freedom is already within us and must not be taken away. No matter your age, your race, your gender, or your orientation (which is to say, no matter your practical concern), each of us and all of us were liberated from enslavement and none of us is going back.


haggadah Section: Commentary / Readings
Source: Rabbi Jack Moline