The Pascal sacrifice in Egypt was to teach the Jews that they were no longer under Egyptian rule, just as it was to teach the Egyptians that their entire society was based on a lie.

The Korban Pesach: Freedom Requires Jewish Pride

One of the very first mitzvot we received as a people was the Korban Pesach, the Pascal sacrifice. What’s striking is when this mitzvah is given: between the plague of darkness and the death of the firstborn—right at the threshold of redemption.

God commands the Jews to take a lamb, bring it into their homes, slaughter it, roast it, eat it publicly, and place its blood on the doorposts. This blood would mark Jewish homes so that God would pass over them during the final plague.

At first glance, this seems strange. Why this act? Why now?

But we have to remember something fundamental: just as the plagues were judgments on Egypt—its gods, its economy, its ideology—they were also building the Jewish people. Redemption is not only about leaving Egypt physically. It’s about leaving slavery psychologically.

And this mitzvah is all about that.

The lamb was an Egyptian god. God is telling the Jews:
Take your former master’s god. Bring it into your home. Slaughter it. Roast it. Eat it. And then advertise it by putting its blood on your doorposts.

Imagine what that takes. These people had been slaves their entire lives. Publicly defying Egyptian religion wasn’t just dangerous—it was unthinkable. And yet God is saying: You are not leaving as frightened slaves. You are leaving as a proud nation.

Freedom requires Jewish pride.

I once heard a powerful story that captures this idea. A Jewish refugee from Austria in the 1930s was drafted into the U.S. Army during World War II. Because many Jewish refugees spoke fluent German and understood German culture, the army grouped them into a special intelligence unit.

On the first day of basic training, the sergeant—a rough Southern man—walked up to the most Jewish-looking soldier and barked, “You a Jew?”

Everyone froze.

The soldier answered quietly, “Yes.”

The sergeant shouted, “I can’t hear you!”

So the soldier yelled:
“Yes, Sergeant! I am a Jew, Sergeant!”

The sergeant replied:
“That’s how I want you to say it. If someone doesn’t like that you’re a Jew, you deal with them. And if you don’t—I will.”

That sergeant understood something profound. You don’t send people into battle ashamed of who they are. You build them up with identity and pride.

That is exactly what Hashem—and Moshe—were doing in Egypt.

Before freedom could happen, the Jewish people had to learn:
Don’t hide who you are.
Don’t deny your identity.
Live Jewishly, publicly, proudly.

Our responsibility is not to worry about who doesn’t like it.
Our responsibility is to do the mitzvot, to live as Jews, and to wear that identity with pride.

That was true in Egypt.
It was true then.
And it’s something worth thinking about now.

The ninth plague was to teach both the Jews and the Egyptians that idolatry is darkness while the Torah is light. When we stray from the Torah we enter into darkness.

Parashat Bo: From Economic Collapse to Spiritual Darkness

This week’s parashah, Parashat Bo, brings us to the final three plagues—the decisive blows that dismantle Egypt entirely. What is striking is that these plagues are not random acts of destruction; they are systematic. They unravel Egypt layer by layer: its economy, its ideology, and finally its continuity as a civilization.

The first of these plagues is locusts, which utterly destroy the Egyptian economy. Every remaining crop is consumed. Egypt is left with nothing. This is not accidental. There is a profound measure-for-measure (middah k’neged middah) at work here. Egypt survived the great famine years earlier only because of Joseph, who saved the country through careful planning and foresight. Yet Pharaoh later chose to “forget” Joseph—to erase history when it no longer suited his narrative.

God’s response is clear: You forgot how you were saved from famine? Then you will experience a famine with no rescue. Egypt’s economy collapses completely.

Next comes the plague of darkness, and this plague is fundamentally different. It follows the destruction of Egypt’s material strength, but it precedes the final blow—the death of the firstborn, which will sever Egypt’s future. Darkness is not about physical survival; it is about meaning, belief, and identity.

Egypt was an intensely ideological civilization. Among its central objects of worship was the sun, embodied in the god Ra. As long as the sun rose each day, Egypt believed its worldview was validated. Power, permanence, and divinity all flowed from that light.

Then God removes it.

This darkness was not merely the absence of light. It was a spiritual paralysis. People could not see one another. They could not move. They could not communicate. Society itself ceased to function. A civilization that had worshiped light discovered that it was, at its core, a civilization of darkness.

And yet, in the very same space, the Israelites had light. The Torah tells us explicitly: “For all the children of Israel there was light in their dwellings.” This is not just a physical distinction—it is a philosophical one. Torah is light. Idolatry is darkness.

Rashi reminds us that the light created on the first day of Creation was not the sun. The sun came later. The original light was a deeper illumination—a moral and spiritual clarity, a light reserved for the righteous. That is the light the Israelites possessed in Egypt.

During this plague, the Israelites were able to see everything. They could see where the Egyptians had hidden the wealth they had stolen from Jewish slave labor. Later, when the Jews demanded payment before leaving Egypt, the Egyptians could not deny it. “We have nothing,” they said.
“Yes, you do,” the Jews replied—and they knew exactly where it was.

But this plague was not only about justice or punishment. It was a lesson—primarily for the Jews themselves.

If you follow the Torah, you walk in light.
If you abandon it, you walk in darkness.

History bears this out repeatedly. Secular ideologies often promise enlightenment and progress, but they consistently lead to oppression and despair. One powerful modern expression of this idea appears in Darkness at Noon, written by Arthur Koestler after his imprisonment by the Soviet regime. The title alone captures the paradox: a movement that claimed to bring light instead delivered darkness at the height of the day.

The message of the plague of darkness is timeless. True enlightenment does not come from power, ideology, or human systems. It comes from Torah. Anything else, no matter how persuasive it sounds, eventually leads to blindness.

That is the choice placed before us—not only in Egypt, but in every generation:

Light or darkness.
Torah or illusion.

Something to think about.

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The first commandment that the Jewish people received as a people was to declare the new month. Keeping time connotes freedom. We are now responsible for keeping time and what we do with it.

The First Mitzvah of Freedom: Owning Time

One of the most striking ideas in Parashat Bo is something Rashi points out almost in passing—but it changes how we understand freedom itself.

The first mitzvah given to the Jewish people as a people is Kiddush HaChodesh—the sanctification and announcement of the new month, Rosh Chodesh.

And notice when this mitzvah is given.

Not at Sinai.
Not after the Exodus.
Not after the splitting of the sea.

It is given while we are still in Egypt, while we are still enslaved, while we are still waiting for the final plague—the death of the firstborn—that will finally break Egyptian power.

This timing is deliberate.

Up until now, Egypt has been systematically dismantled. The plagues destroy Egypt’s gods, economy, natural order, and belief system. Darkness itself—both physical and ideological—has already descended. The final blow is imminent.

But before God takes us out of Egypt, something else must happen.

Egypt has to be taken out of us.

That is the deeper meaning of this mitzvah.

A defining difference between a slave and a free person is control over time.

A slave does not need a watch.
A slave does not set schedules.
A slave does not decide when something begins or ends.

Time belongs to the master.

A free person, by contrast, is responsible for time. If you are free, you must know when to act, when to show up, when something begins, and when it ends. You are accountable—not just for your actions, but for when you take them.

That is why the Jewish people are commanded, even before leaving Egypt, to sanctify time itself.

“This month is for you the first of months.”

God is saying: You are no longer passive objects in history.
You will no longer be told when life happens to you.
You will now shape time.

This idea remains true today.

Even on a secular holiday, even when attendance is small, even when the outside world is off schedule—we still pray at fixed times. We still show up. Because free people are responsible for their commitments, and free people understand that time matters.

A slave lives reactively.
A free person lives intentionally.

The mitzvah of Rosh Chodesh is not just about the calendar. It is about dignity, responsibility, and moral agency. It is the moment God tells the Jewish people: You are now accountable. You are now builders of a future.

Freedom does not begin with open borders.
Freedom begins with owning time.

Something to think about.

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When Moses began his mission, he and his brother were alone. By the end they were the natural leaders and Egypt was destroyed. The were standing for the right thing while Pharaoh tried to lie his way out.

Quick D’var Torah – Parashat Bo

We are entering Parashat Bo, the parasha where the real geulah begins. From this point on, Egypt doesn’t just suffer plagues—it is systematically dismantled.

The first of the final three plagues is arbeh, locusts. Locusts consume everything in their path. This isn’t symbolic—it’s economic collapse. Egypt’s agriculture, its wealth, its future, all wiped out. The Egyptian economy is finished.

Then comes darkness. The Egyptians are plunged into darkness, while the Israelites have light. This is more than physical—it’s ideological. Egyptian belief is a culture of darkness. Ours is a movement toward light. The very first thing Hashem creates in the Torah is light, because light represents clarity, truth, and life.

Egyptian culture worshipped death. One of the first acts of a new Pharaoh was to begin building his tomb. Their entire civilization was oriented toward death and the afterlife. Judaism is the opposite. We honor the dead—but we worship life. We preserve life, protect life, and sanctify life, because without life, nothing else matters.

Then comes the final blow: the death of the firstborn.

But already by the plague of locusts, something critical happens. The Egyptian people themselves realize Pharaoh is finished. Moshe says something will happen—and it happens. Pharaoh’s narrative collapses. The people begin to turn on him. Now Pharaoh isn’t just fighting Moshe; he’s dealing with internal rebellion. Everything is unraveling.

The man everyone once mocked—Moshe—is now clearly running the show.

History repeats itself.

Think about Glenn Richter, who in the 1960s said that quiet diplomacy to save Soviet Jewry wasn’t working. The establishment told him, “This will never work.” But he didn’t listen. He organized protests, changed the conversation, and helped bring about the Jackson–Vanik Amendment, forcing the Soviets to allow Jews to leave. He moved mountains. And eventually, the Soviet Union itself collapsed.

The lesson is powerful: sometimes redemption requires people willing to act, to speak truth, and to step on toes.

That’s what happens in Parashat Bo. The Jews begin learning that redemption isn’t passive. Under Moshe’s leadership—and Hashem’s guidance—they start taking responsibility for their future. Moshe is no longer seen as an outsider. His leadership comes from integrity, truth, and moral courage. He says what needs to be said, regardless of the consequences.

And that’s real leadership: doing what’s right, caring about your fellow Jew, and refusing to live by a false narrative—even when it’s uncomfortable.

Something very important to think about.

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Just as dictators will try to keep their narrative, the true believers in them will make every excuse why the system isn’t working as it should. It is harder to shake their belief with the truth. But it is our duty to try.

True Believers and the Power of Narrative

Yesterday I spoke about Pharaoh’s desperate attempt to keep his narrative alive even as the facts were collapsing all around him. As we know, narratives can be powerful—but eventually, facts win out. Or as the modern phrase goes, facts don’t care about your feelings. I’ve heard that somewhere.

One of the biggest problems Moshe faces, however, is not Pharaoh himself—but the fact that some of Pharaoh’s most committed true believers were the slaves themselves: the Jewish people.

This is not unique. History shows us again and again that even when a system is clearly failing, some people cling to it until the bitter end. Think of young boys defending Nazi Germany as Allied forces closed in on Berlin—long after it was obvious the war was over. Or Jews who continued to support the Soviet Union even when it was clear that the system was corrupt, oppressive, and that even its leaders no longer believed in it. They were in it for power and money, not ideology.

There’s a remarkable example from Israel after the Soviet Union collapsed. Someone at Israeli television had the inspired idea to interview members of Kibbutz Yad Hanna, the only kibbutz officially aligned with the pro-Moscow Communist Party of Israel. They were asked to explain the collapse of the Soviet Union. What followed was unintentionally hilarious: an elaborate attempt to explain—within their ideological framework—how the Soviet Union hadn’t really collapsed. The facts didn’t matter; the system had to be preserved.

We see this same phenomenon today. During Israel’s recent war with Hamas, much of the mainstream media treated Hamas statements as credible, reporting them as fact and then adding, “Israel says otherwise—we don’t know who to believe.” This despite the overwhelming evidence that Hamas lies consistently and deliberately. But facts didn’t matter, because many of these commentators were true believers in their own ideological framework.

They believed that the poor are always righteous, the wealthy always evil; that people of darker skin must always be victims and others must always be oppressors. The Torah explicitly rejects this worldview. When judging a case, the Torah commands: Do not favor the poor and do not favor the rich. Justice is not emotional. Justice is factual.

Pharaoh ruled by edict, fear, and propaganda. Moshe did not lead through fear—he led through integrity and truth. What Moshe said came true. That is why the people eventually followed him: not because they were coerced, but because he earned their trust.

And yet—even after leaving Egypt—some Jews still cried out in the desert, “We had it so good in Egypt.” Slavery, beatings, degradation—forgotten. This too is familiar. To this day, there are people in Russia who say they miss Stalin.

This is the enduring danger of narrative: when people become so emotionally invested in an idea that they cannot abandon it, even when reality disproves it.

Our task is different. The Torah demands intellectual honesty. Even when the facts are uncomfortable—even when they don’t support our preferred story—we must follow them anyway. We cannot explain reality away just to protect our beliefs.

That is the difference between Pharaoh and Moshe.
That is the difference between propaganda and truth.
And that is something worth thinking about.

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Pharaoh built up a false narrative that he was a god. The plagues slowly destroyed that narrative. There is nothing worse for a dictator than to have his lies revealed as such.

Pharaoh, Narrative Control, and the Collapse of a Lie

One of the central struggles in this week’s parashah is not merely between Pharaoh and Moses, or even between Egypt and Israel. It is a struggle over who controls the narrative.

Pharaoh is an authoritarian ruler in the purest sense. Egypt is not a constitutional monarchy; it is an absolute one. Pharaoh’s will is law. What he desires becomes policy. But when such a system begins to unravel, the ruler does not surrender power gracefully. Instead, he fights to preserve something else: the story he tells about himself and his world.

This is the last stand of every dictator.

From the beginning of the plagues, Pharaoh is losing—again and again. Yet he continues to minimize, reinterpret, and dismiss what is happening. Why? Because once he admits the truth, the entire structure collapses. His authority rests not on justice or legitimacy, but on illusion.

A striking example appears with the very first plague. Moses is instructed to confront Pharaoh early in the morning, by the Nile. The commentators explain why: Pharaoh presents himself as a god. A god, of course, has no human bodily functions. To maintain this fiction, Pharaoh must secretly go to the river at dawn.

Moses knows this. He grew up in Pharaoh’s palace. By confronting him there, Moses is not merely delivering a warning—he is exposing the lie. He is stripping away the divine mask and revealing Pharaoh for what he truly is: a human being.

This theme runs deeper. The entire enslavement of the Israelites was built on a false narrative. The Torah tells us that a new Pharaoh arose “who did not know Joseph.” This does not mean ignorance; it means willful denial. Joseph saved Egypt from famine. Everyone knew it. But acknowledging that truth would undermine the regime’s justification for oppression.

So Pharaoh rewrites history: What have these people ever done for us?
Once a society is built on a lie, it must be defended relentlessly. Truth becomes dangerous. Memory becomes subversive. Narrative control becomes essential to survival.

That is why Pharaoh denigrates Moses, belittles the Israelites, and dismisses each plague as coincidence or magic. He cannot afford to recognize reality. And yet, with every plague, another layer of illusion is peeled away.

On one level, the plagues are meant to free the Jewish people. On a deeper level, they are meant to demonstrate something even more fundamental: God is God, and Pharaoh is not. Each plague dismantles another pillar of Egypt’s theology and political mythology. Nature itself refuses to cooperate with the fiction.

This contrast becomes even clearer when we look at Moses himself. When the Torah introduces him, it does not name his parents. It simply says that “a man and a woman” had a child. Rabbi Yaakov Kamenetsky points out the significance of this omission. Moses is not born a demigod. He has no royal lineage, no divine origin story. The Torah is emphasizing a radical idea: any human being can rise to leadership—but no human being becomes God.

That is the essential difference between Moses and Pharaoh.

Pharaoh claims divinity and must deny his humanity. Moses embraces his humanity and becomes the greatest leader in Jewish history. Redemption does not come through self-deification, but through humility.

The ultimate lesson of the Exodus is not only political or historical—it is existential. When power is built on lies, it must constantly fight the truth. When leaders forget that they are human, reality will remind them.

We are not diminished by being human.
We are dignified by it.
God is God.
And human beings—no matter how powerful—are not.

The real problem that Moses had in Egypt was to rally the Jews to his side. Moses had to deal with a people who were suffering. They did not want to hear it if it made their lives worse. He had to address them so that they would understand.

A Quick D’var Torah – Know Before Whom You Stand

Yesterday I spoke about how the plagues were a judgment on Egypt—on its gods and ultimately on Pharaoh himself.
But today we have to deal with the elephant in the room:
Why don’t the Jews believe Moshe? Why don’t they believe Moses when he comes to save them?

Moshe arrives with a message of redemption—and their response is essentially:
“Since you came, things have only gotten worse. You’re a troublemaker.”

And in a sense, we can understand them.

These people were born into slavery. Slavery is all they’ve ever known.
Their entire reality is physical pain, exhaustion, and fear.
Moshe shows up with promises of freedom—but promises don’t ease today’s suffering.

That’s why the scene at the Burning Bush is so important.
God tells Moshe, “Take off your shoes, for the place you are standing is holy ground.”

But this isn’t just about reverence for God.
The ground Moshe is standing on is jagged, painful terrain.
For the first time, Moshe has to feel discomfort—to feel, even briefly, what the people he’s about to lead have lived with their entire lives.

Until now, Moshe has lived a charmed life.
Raised in Pharaoh’s palace. Successful at everything he touched.
He has never truly known the kind of suffering these people know.

And God is teaching him something critical:
You must address people as they are—not as you wish them to be.

I’ve learned this myself as a public speaker.
You can’t speak to every audience the same way.
What works in one room won’t work in another.
You have to understand where people are coming from, what language they understand, what pain they’re carrying.

Moshe has to learn that lesson fast.

There’s another layer here as well.
Freedom itself is frightening.

For a slave, responsibility is terrifying.
A slave isn’t accountable for his actions—the master is.
When to work, when to stop, when to eat—it’s all decided for him.

Freedom means responsibility.

My wife and I were watching Turn: Washington’s Spies, about the American Revolution.
There’s a moment when Washington gives a slave a watch.
A watch matters because once you’re free, time matters.
You’re responsible for showing up. For choosing. For acting.

And that’s the problem.

The Jews aren’t ready yet—not emotionally, not psychologically—to carry freedom.
Moshe’s greatest challenge was never Pharaoh. Pharaoh would fall.
His hardest task was rebuilding a broken people—helping them believe they were capable of freedom.

That takes time.

Something to think about.

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The plagues in Egypt were designed to destroy the entirety of Egyptian society. It was God’s judgement that that society was evil and had to be uprooted.

D’var Torah – Parashat Va’era / The Plagues and the Collapse of an Unjust Society

One of the powerful lessons of this week’s parashah is how an unjust government—and even an entire unjust society—ultimately collapses.

The Ten Plagues are not random punishments. They are a systematic assault on Egyptian civilization itself, from the ground up.

It begins with the plague of blood. The Nile was not just a river in ancient Egypt; it was a god. Egypt’s economy, agriculture, and identity depended on it. When the Nile turns to blood, the message is unmistakable: your god is powerless.

From there, the plagues move through nature itself. Frogs, lice, wild animals—creation turns against Egypt. One detail that often gets overlooked is how unnatural the plague of wild beasts truly was. These animals did not attack one another. Predators and prey moved together, united. Nature itself was reordered to show that the moral order Egypt relied upon was false.

Each plague strips away another layer of Egyptian authority—religious, natural, economic—until finally the ultimate symbol of power, Pharaoh himself, is exposed as helpless. By the end, the government is revealed to be incapable of performing its most basic function: protecting its people.

History shows us this pattern again and again. When people realize that a regime is not all-powerful, that it cannot defend itself or its citizens, its authority begins to crumble. Once fear disappears, the foundations of oppression weaken.

This is why, in many historical conflicts, the goal has not only been military victory but the destruction of the myth of invincibility. During World War II, Allied strategy aimed to show that the Nazi regime was not omnipotent. During the American Civil War, Sherman’s march was designed to dismantle the social and economic structure that sustained slavery.

The Torah teaches a difficult but essential truth: an unjust society cannot simply be reformed at the surface. Its foundations must be dismantled before anything moral can be rebuilt. Redemption does not come through cosmetic change; it comes through transformation.

Of course, destruction alone is not enough. Rebuilding matters—but that is a separate stage. This parashah focuses on the first step: exposing false gods, breaking unjust power, and clearing the ground for something better.

That is one of the enduring messages of the plagues—and something worth thinking about.

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One of the issues of dealing with Pharaoh is that he refuses to allow the Jews to define who they are. The issue is that only the Jews get to define who we are, not anyone else.

A Quick D’var Torah – Names and Freedom

One of the central issues in the story of the Exodus is names. In fact, in Hebrew the book is not called Exodus at all, but Shemot—Names. That is not incidental; it is essential.

When Moses comes before Pharaoh and says, “The God of Israel has said, ‘Let My people go so that they may serve Me,’” Pharaoh responds, “Who is the God of Israel? I have never heard of Him.” Moses then shifts language and says, “The God of the Hebrews.”

That shift matters. In much of the Bible, the term Hebrew is a derogatory label, used by outsiders. Pharaoh does not see the Israelites as a people with dignity or identity; he sees them as an inferior labor class. That is why, later in the Torah, the phrase is not “a Jewish slave” but “a Hebrew slave”—someone stripped of full status.

Freedom, however, requires more than physical release. Pharaoh must be broken enough to recognize that these people have a God—and the Israelites must regain self-respect. You cannot be free if you are defeated mentally. Slavery begins with the loss of identity.

Years ago, there was a television series called Roots, about the African-American experience of slavery. One scene captures this perfectly. A slave owner insists that a man’s name is “Toby.” The man refuses, even as he is beaten. He keeps saying, “My name is Kunta.” At one point the master says, “He can’t be too smart—he doesn’t even know his name.” And the overseer replies, “He knows his name. He just doesn’t want yours.”

That is exactly the issue in Shemot. We know our name—and we refuse to accept the names others impose on us.

The world constantly tries to define who we are. We are told what Judaism is, who counts as a Jew, and what we are allowed to believe. I once heard a Jew-hater say, “Judaism is just a religion. If you don’t believe in God, you can’t be Jewish.” That is simply false. We are a people, a nation. There have always been Jews of varying belief, yet they remain Jews.

This struggle goes all the way back to Pharaoh. He wanted to define us in a degrading way. Every generation has its Pharaohs who try to do the same.

Our response is not only pride, but responsibility: to live as Jews, to do what is right, to follow God’s commands—and even when we fall short, we still define ourselves.

That is the message of Shemot: redemption begins when a people reclaim their name.

Something to think about.

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When Moses starts to redeem the Jews, he is facing the problem that they have given up hope. He has to get them to understand that they will be redeemed. This is true thought-out history, It is hard for those enslaved to believe that the end will be good.

D’var Torah – Parashat Shemot: Leadership, Hope, and Not Knowing the End

In this week’s parashah, Moshe Rabbeinu is given an almost impossible task. We, as readers, don’t always appreciate how difficult it truly was—because we know how the story ends. We know there will be redemption, the Exodus, the splitting of the sea.

But no one inside the story knows that. Not Moshe, and certainly not Bnei Yisrael.

From their perspective, Moshe arrives on the scene and everything gets worse. He confronts Pharaoh, Pharaoh retaliates, and the suffering intensifies. Work becomes harder, hope seems farther away, and the natural human response follows: they turn on Moshe.

This is one of the Torah’s most profound lessons. It is easy to have faith when you know the outcome. It is much harder when you don’t.

We see this pattern throughout history.

In 1962, Glenn Richter and Rabbi Berman helped launch the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry. They were told—especially by the Jewish establishment—“Don’t demonstrate. Don’t protest. You’re just making things worse. Quiet diplomacy will work.”

If you had told them that within thirty years the Soviet Union would collapse and Jews would leave in massive numbers, people would have laughed. Nobody believed it. And yet, they persisted. They organized demonstrations, pressured Congress, helped bring about the Jackson-Vanik Amendment, and forced the Soviet Union to confront its moral bankruptcy.

History proved them right—not the experts.

The same lesson appears in 1949 during the Berlin blockade. The Soviets cut off West Berlin, hoping the West would abandon it. The experts told President Truman it couldn’t be supplied. “There’s nothing we can do,” they said.

Truman asked one simple question to Air Force Chief Curtis LeMay:
“Can we supply Berlin by air?”

LeMay paused and said, “It’s doable.”
Truman replied, “Then do it.”

What followed was the Berlin Airlift—hundreds of planes a day, landing and taking off within minutes, supplying an entire city for over a year. Once again, the experts were wrong, because leadership refused to surrender hope.

This is Moshe’s challenge in Parashat Shemot. His job is not only to confront Pharaoh—it is to give hope to a people who see no end, to insist that suffering is not permanent, and to lead even when the path forward is unclear.

When people tell you to give up hope, that is the most dangerous moment of all.

The Torah teaches us that redemption begins before it is visible. Faith is not believing after the miracle—it is acting before it happens. As bleak as things may sometimes appear, we believe that God has not abandoned His people, and that our actions, even when they seem futile, can shape history.

That is the message of Moshe.
That is the message of Shemot.
And it is something worth thinking about.

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