Every year, we gather around the Seder table and tell a story that is at once ancient and immediate. We speak of slavery and liberation, of fear and faith, of a people caught between despair and destiny. And yet, this year, like so many in Jewish history, Passover did not feel like a story of the past. It feels like a mirror.

Because the truth is, the Jewish people have never really left Egypt.

Not literally, of course. But historically, psychologically, existentially we are still navigating the same tensions that defined our earliest national experience. Passover is not just about where we came from. It is about where we always seem to find ourselves again.

A People Born Into Uncertainty

The Exodus is often framed as a story of triumph: God redeems the Israelites, splits the sea, and delivers them to freedom. But the Torah tells a more complicated story. Freedom was not immediate comfort—it was disorientation. The moment the Israelites left Egypt, they began to doubt, to fear, to question whether liberation was sustainable.

That dynamic has defined Jewish history ever since.

From the destruction of the Temples to the expulsion from Spain, from........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)