A word of Torah:    
          The story of the slavery of the Israelites begins with a big lie. Pharaoh says: “Look the Israelite are much too numerous for us. Let us deal shrewdly with them, so that they may not increase, otherwise in the event of war they may join our enemies” (Ex. 1:11). This preposterous notion is accepted by the Egyptian people who join in a campaign to oppress the Israelites with forced labor. When that isn’t effective enough, Pharaoh orders that as the male Israelite children cross over the border of birth they should be taken from their parents and be killed.
          The Israelites cry out and God responds by sending Moses to Egypt to lead the people to freedom. Despite the plagues that God sends to Egypt, Pharaoh resists. This week’s Torah portion begins as Moses threatens that a plague of locust will cover the land so that no one will be able to see it. Pharaoh’s courtiers said to him: “Let the men go to worship the Lord their God! Are you not yet aware that Egypt is lost?” (Ex. 10:7). Even the courtiers see the truth that Pharaoh has brought destruction to the land, but Pharaoh won’t relent. The plague of locusts is followed by a plague of darkness; Egyptians could no longer even see one another. It is the ultimate description of an uncaring narcissism. The darkness is so deep that it can be touched and yet still Pharaoh won’t relent. It will take a plague of death and destruction. The Egyptians will cry out, echoing the cry of the Israelites at the beginning of the story. Finally, the Israelites will go free. Yet even then an obsessed Pharaoh is unwilling to admit defeat and will chase after the Israelites, leading to an even greater defeat at the crossing of the sea.
         The Torah tells us to remember we were slaves in Egypt. We are to look back to the beginning of the history of the Jewish people in order to appreciate the difficulty of the struggle for freedom and be reminded of the principles for which we fought. We do the same with the founding story of America, when we recall the struggle for independence. There were more Valley Forges than victories like Yorktown. The past was not filled with greatness but with the dream of liberty and the idea of the common good.
         We are living in a time of darkness, with a plague of death that strikes down the old and the young. For there is no house without an awareness of the suffering in our land. Yet these words still express our hopes:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all…are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted…But when a long train of abuses and usurpations…it is their right, it is their duty… to provide new Guards for their future security… The history of the present King …is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
                                                                   Excerpted from the Declaration of Independence