Moses’ first attempt to free the Israelites only results in their increased oppression by a shrewd Pharoah, who tries to stomp out a rebellion before it can gain momentum. The people complain to Moses, who in turn complains to God. God responds by emphasizing that God will take them out of Egypt, save them, liberate them and take them to be God’s people (Ex. 6:6-7). Moses conveys that promise to the Israelites, but  “they would not listen to Moses, because their spirits are crushed and because of their cruel bondage (mi-kotzer ru’ah u-mei-avodah kashah).

      Perhaps their spirits are crushed because they unrealistically thought that they would quickly gain their freedom. They didn’t understand that struggles for freedom never happen overnight. The commentator, the Netziv suggests that the hard work mentioned in the verse is not their slavery but the hard work to bring about freedom. A number of commentators suggest that the worst part of slavery was that they had come to accept it as their fate. In verse 7, it speaks of sivlot mitzrayim, usually translated as the labors or sufferings in Egypt. Some Hasidic commentators suggest that the sivlot could be understood to mean "tolerate"—they had come to think slavery was their permanent condition. 

      Moses is persistent in returning again and again to Pharoah and demanding “Let my people go.” God is also persistent in bringing the ten plagues. They may have had an impact on Pharoah and the Egyptians. The Israelites needed something else. It was not faith, for their spirits were crushed. 

      What they needed was a vision of freedom—a vision of a different way to be. It will require not just the hard work to bring about the moment of liberation. It will demand something even more challenging than that struggle---it will require living as a free person. As a slave you don’t have real responsibility for your life. As a free person you must shape your life and your society. It will not be simple. There will be difficult choices. Those choices need to be negotiated with others in your family or society who disagree with you.

      In the end, the Israelites will leave Egypt but they will also carry it with them. Too often, they listen to voices depicting an imagined past filled with free food. They suffer from a shortness of breath, unwilling to be present to the challenges of the moment. They listen to the voices blaming “those people” for everything that is wrong. The way ahead is uncertain, but going back to Egypt is simply foolish. The courage to travel into the unknown is the only way to reach the land of this promise: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people 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.”