A Soulful Journey

" The essence of the Exodus is in the initial, faith-motivated decision to leave the ordinary, the routine life, and to follow God. This is the all-inclusive point of departure. Prior to that, there is nothing." Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

" The revolution, which finds here not its end, but its organizational beginning, is no short-lived revolution.  The present generation is like the Jews whom Moses led through the wilderness.  It has not only a new world to conquer, it must go under in order to make room for men who are able to cope with a new world." - Karl Marx, 1848 We are always in need of a revolution but one which is based in dignity, morality and steeped in the wisdom of the past.

"The Messiah...will come [to Rome] and command the Pope and all the kings of the nations in the name of God, 'Let my people go so that they may serve Me'."  - Ramban For thousands of years this has been the hope of the Jew.

The natural course of events is when water comes from the heavens above and bread from the ground.  In the exodus from Egypt, however, all things were reversed - bread came from the heavens and water came from the rock.  -Rabbi Louis Jacobs

"More than 300 years ago a ship by the name of the Mayflower left Plymouth for the New World. It was a great event in American and English history. I wonder how many Englishmen or how many Americans know exactly the date when that ship left Plymouth, how many people were on the ship, and what was the kind of bread that people ate when they left Plymouth. Well, more than 3,300 years ago the Jews left Egypt. It was more than 3,000 years ago and every Jew in the world knows exactly the date when we left. It was on the 15th of Nisan. The bread they ate was matzoth. Up to date all the Jews throughout the world on the 15th of Nisan eat the same matzoth, in America, in Russia, and tell the story of the exile from Egypt and tell what happened, all the sufferings that happened to the Jews since they went into exile. They finish by these two sentences: "This year we are slaves; next year we will be free. This year we are here; next year we will be in Zion, the land of Israel." Je...

Freedom always has a price-tag.  It requires work to preserve it: “Prosperity will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve that freedom!   I hope you will make good use of it.   If you do not, I shall repeat it in heaven that I even took half the pains to preserve it.”   - John Adams

What we have experienced must make a difference in the way we live our life.   For example, we repeat countless times in our liturgy the freedom gained through God’s intervention.   Redemption from slavery continues to inform our daily decisions too.   Here is what one great philosopher had to say about our past: ”Since the Exodus, Freedom has always spoken with a Hebrew accent.”   -Heinrich Heine There is an obligation that we all have.   It is a legacy from or past.   It must inform our present: