“When Pharaoh sent the people off …” With the plagues past, the blood dried, the matzah baked and packed, the people are leaving Egypt. But no celebration ensues. There would be no straight road to Canaan, only carping and complaining and delay. Even behind pillars of cloud and fire, the Israelites were unprepared for the task of conquering Canaan. That would take time.
As we struggle piecemeal toward the full release of the hostages, we recognize that the path ahead is not strewn with roses for them, their families, or any of us. So much reckoning with the past has barely begun. So many need to grieve for those only now being brought to burial. So much injury of body and trauma to the soul — in none more than those who emerged alive from darkness to light after seemingly endless months of terror and abuse.
“With our youngsters and our old people we will go,” Moses had told Pharaoh. Liberation was to be a collective undertaking. So it was then; so it is now.
