Netivot Shalom, one of the late Chassidic masters, wrote a teaching about the verse from the Haggadah, “And it happened at midnight.”
“Why was it so important”, asked Netivot Shalom, “to record the exact moment when our ancestors went out from Egypt? And why was that time memorialized in the Haggadah?”
And he answered by quoting a teaching from the Talmud. In ancient times, the Talmud tells us, there we shomrim, guards, who protected the cities at night. And they were divided into three shifts. The early shift, said Netivot Shalom, was fairly safe, because there was still some sunlight from the previous day. And the last shift was also safe, because the light of dawn was beginning.
But the middle shift, said Netivot Shalom, was the darkest of all. All the light, all the hope from the previous day had disappeared, and the hope of the future was not yet there.
And this, said Netivot Shalom, is why God took us out of Egypt at the stroke of midnight – to remind us that even at the darkest moment, even when all hope seems gone, redemption is possible.
And in fact, said Netivot Shalom, redemption is going on at every moment. At every moment, there are people being cured of cancer, people going free, people who are seeing their dreams come true. We just don’t notice.
These last few months have been the darkest I’ve ever seen. I lived through the Cuban missile crisis, and I stood in Moscow and in Siberia as the crisis of Soviet Jewery played out. And I have never seen times as dark as these. But our people have lived through dark times before, and we have always survived them.
The Exodus from Egypt began with the smallest possible action. After four hundred years, the Torah tells us, the people were able to admit how bad things were, and the let out a sigh. And that, says the Torah, was the beginning of redemption.
As Passover approaches on this difficult year, may we all have the courage to say that our country deserves better, that are no longer willing to be slaves. And with human hands and the grace of God, may all of us find redemption.