LESSONS LEARNED

“…but you the Lord took and brought (us) out of Egypt, that iron blast furnace, to be His very own people, as is now the case.”                        

(Deuteronomy 4:20)

Without those seemingly endless years

lifetimes of our people as slaves

would we be here now?

Those agonizing years in a blast-furnace

taught us much

things that have served us well to this day

that have helped us endure:

thousands of years 

of exiles from many lands

persecutions and unspeakable cruelty

taught us to maintain our faith and trust in God; 

in one another; in the future

while praying for redemption, even in darkest times, 

of which we have endured far too many

most recently on October 7th, 5784

Those years in Egypt purified us

tempered us

made us tough and strong and resilient

At our Seders, we are Moses in Deuteronomy

reminding ourselves while

teaching the next generation the stories and

lessons of our past, of those years in Egypt

that made it possible for us to be here now, 

re-telling those stories every year 

stories that have become internalized 

embedded in our DNA

stories that no matter what befalls us

continue to give us hope and faith and strength

Am Yisrael Chai!