From The Bimah: Jewish Lessons For Life

“Say, therefore, to the Israelite people: I am the Lord. I will free you from the labors of the Egyptians and deliver you from their bondage. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and through extraordinary chastisements. And I will take you to be My people, and I will be your God…I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob…” But when Moses told this to the Israelites, they would not listen to Moses, their spirits crushed by cruel bondage.” Exodus 6: 6-9. Our reading this week begins with God promising the Israelites, through five famous verbs, that God would save them. The promises all turned out to be true. Every year at our seders, we celebrate these five verbs of redemption through the four cups of wine and the fifth cup for Elijah and Miriam. Famously, however, the Hebrew slaves who were the intended audience for this reassurance could not take it in. Why not? Because of Abraham Maslow. In 1943 Abraham Maslow, an American psychologist