Today's Pharaoh

We are descended from slaves, from people who staged the first successful slave revolt in recorded history. Ever since then, our people have kept alive the story of liberation: cruelty and oppression are not inevitable "facts of life," but conditions that can be changed. The message of the Exodus is revolutionary. The "way of the world" is not the way it has to be. Everything can be changedthe potential for improvement lies everywhereonce we realize that an omnipresent God who created the world also granted us the power and responsibility to transform the world and make it better.

Today this task may seem more overwhelming than ever. In today's world the forces of evil are not as easily identifiable as they once were. We are hard-pressed to identify modern-day Pharaohs with any degree of certainty, while our own relative comfort may blind us to the misery of others. Today we must be more vigilant than ever.

Every one of us reads the news. We listen to it on the radio and watch it on TV. We discuss it over lunch with friends, and overhear snippets of conversation among others. We know the news, but do we really experience it? Do tidings of war, famine, poverty, and disease evoke more than just a furrowed brow and a sigh of consternation among us? Could we do more to eliminate oppression than simply recognizing its existence ... its evil. Are we willing to confront these modern-day Pharaohs even though, like Moses, we may stutter? Can we really be free unless we do?

The Haggadah teaches us that every generation must see itself as if it is being liberated from Mitzrayim. We must not simply remember the Exodus, but we must relive it.