Reflection
In the Biblical story , the ancient Egyptians speak of Israel always as a collective , not as individuals . We too , often speak of those we don ’ t know well as though they were all alike . But we would like to think that if the ancient Egyptians had known each of us here tonight , they would never have seen us as aliens , nor would they have afflicted us .
I prefer liberty with danger than peace with slavery . — Jean-Jacques Rousseau , a Franco-Swiss philosopher of the Enlightenment .
And what is my life span ? I ' m like a man gone out of Egypt : the Red Sea parts , I cross on dry land , two walls of water ; on my right hand and on my left Pharaoh ' s army and his horsemen behind me . Before me the desert , perhaps the Promised Land , too . That is my life span .
— Yehuda Amichai , and Israeli poet , is considered by many , both in Israel and internationally , as Israel ' s greatest modern poet .
We are a people in whom the past endures , in whom the present is inconceivable without moments gone by . The Exodus lasted a moment , a moment enduring forever . What happened once upon a time happens all the time .
— Abraham Joshua Heschel was a Warsaw-born American rabbi and one of the leading Jewish theologians and Jewish philosophers of the 20th century .
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