“ But if – ilu - the Holy Blessed One had not taken us out of Egypt , then we and our children and our children ’ s children would still be enslaved to Pharaoh in Egypt .”
What an extraordinary claim ! It tells us that had the Exodus not happened when it did , it would never have happened , ever , and even today , thousands of years later , our own view of the future would be overwhelmed with the hopelessness of slavery . We would know that our own grandchildren would surely eternally be slaves . The implications are dark . There are at least two to start with : We should understand that , without God ’ s intervention at a very specific moment in history , God would not have intervened ever again . And we would never become free by any other means , for , without that Divine effort , no amount of human effort would ever be able to make a difference .
Do we ignore this sentence because it is so profoundly unsettling and challenging ?
Yet this statement is crucial to our Story because of the third implication that follows from it . The terror of perpetual enslavement and the abandonment of all hope is countered by the fact that God did take us out of Egypt at that specific , unique and last moment ! And so , we delight in our freedom and good fortune . But we are called to celebrate with a new consciousness , an “ ilu consciousness .” Our “ ilu consciousness ” calls us to realize that God ’ s effort has made possible our hope in our own efforts . Thanks to God ’ s mighty Hand and outstretched Arm our own hands and arms , ears , and hearts are
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