Shabbat – 8th Day of Pesach
Among the fifteen steps we have in the Passover Seder, Maggid consists of the retelling of the story of Exodus. It is based on Midrashim which try to explain some verses of the Torah related to the story of Exodus. There are different versions of the Midrashim used to explain the story in different Haggadot.
One of the verses is: “We cried to the LORD, the God of our fathers, and the LORD heard our plea and saw our plight, our misery, and our oppression.” (Devarim 26:7).
According to this verse, the people of Israel prayed to God, and God listened to them and saw their suffering while they were slaves in Egypt.
It is interesting to note that the Torah uses the same action verb, “see”, when it describes the first time Moses was walking around Egypt.
It is written in the Book of Sh’mot: “Sometime after that, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his kinsfolk and he saw their burdens” (Sh’mot 2:11)
This means that when Moses grew up and walked around the streets of Egypt, he could see the plight of the Hebrews. He was not indifferent to the suffering of the people of Israel. He was not happy to see someone suffering.
Many times, we walk and don’t see what really is happening around us. Moses stopped and saw the slaves’ suffering.