This week, we begin the book of Shmot (Exodus) and the narrative of the Egyptian exile and servitude. Rabbi Sacks writes of the need for the our nation to be born out of slavery:
Egypt was the Jewish people’s school of the soul; memory was its ongoing seminar in the art and craft of freedom. It taught them what it felt like to be on the wrong side of power. “You know what it feels like to be a stranger,” says a resonant phrase in Parshat Mishpatim. Jews were the people commanded never to forget the bitter taste of slavery, so that they would never take freedom for granted. Those who do so, eventually lose it.
As such, we are called on to follow the lead of Moses “who went out to his brothers, and he saw their suffering” (Exodus 2:11) and in so doing “gave over his eyes and his heart to suffer along with them” (Rashi). Moses didn’t stop there, though, as he takes action to save victims in distress. Perhaps Moses understood the words of this anonymous poet:
“I sought my God and my God I could not find
I sought my soul and my soul eluded me.
I sought my brother to serve him in his need,
And I found all three—my God, my soul, and thee.”
Let’s take the message to heart and a Shabbat Shalom!