PASSOVER

We marched out of Egypt as a new-born nation.

We had gone down into Egypt as a family.

And now, after 400 years of slavery we emerged as a nation.

We marched out of Egypt, and we reached the shore of the Red Sea.

And when we reached the water's edge, we turned and we saw that we were trapped!

Pharaoh had sent his war chariots to kill us!

And in spite of having seen the miracles that had brought us out of slavery.

We were SURE that our leaders had blundered us into another trap.

And so the Bible records that we turned to Moses and cynically said;

"Were there no graves in Egypt that you brought us into the desert to die?"

We stood at the BEGINNING of our life as a nation.

The sea was about to part, and we were about to march out to our destiny.

A march that would take us down through three thousand and five hundred years of history.

And yet, at THAT moment we were sure that disaster was upon us, that our destruction was imminent, and that our national leadership had REALLY screwed up!

And what is curious is that we are still the same "realists."

We are convinced that our leaders have failed us.

That we face disaster.

And it is appropriate that on the Seder night we are told to consider the Exodus as if we ourselves had actually experienced it.

So now, 3,500 years later we continue to retell the story of our Exodus from slavery.

And we join hands in a chain that links Jews around the planet and that stretches back through the generations, back to the moment when we stood on the sands of Egypt.

A bunch of cynics who were unaware of the miracles that were about to appear.