Then, the Midrash tells us, one man, Nachshon by name, displayed his commitment to freedom by walking into the sea. Only at the moment when the water reached his neck, when he could go no further on his own, did the sea part. His act of faith and courage opened the way from Egypt to freedom. He enabled us all to be reborn into freedom.
Take turns around the table, each person offers an object or value learned from the experience of slavery (beginning with the first letter of their name).
I'm leaving Egypt and I'm taking with me a:
Where is this place "Egypt," is it the Egypt we know?
Yes, though only the name of the place is the same, the people have changed. In fact we are at peace and allied with the Egypt of today.
The Egypt of the Haggadah is more than a place, it is more than a nation state, it is a state of mind.
Our Hebrew word for that place is "Mitzra'yim", that is: the straits, or narrows. The geographical Mitzra'yim is a pinched green strip of land in the midst of desert along the shores of the Nile River. The metaphorical Mitzra'yim is any restriction.
We have all come through that tight passage, split the waters of the "Red Sea" to search for the way, often struggling for as long as forty years. As with Nachshon, so also for us, we can only achieve our salvation through our own willingness to take risks.
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