Part of a Greater Story It was, perhaps, the rock bottom moment of the slavery. G-d sent Moses to Pharaoh to demand, "Let my people go and serve me in the desert", yet not only did Pharaoh refuse to obey, but he intensified the burden on his Hebrew slaves. Moses cried out to G-d, demanding to know why G-d had sent him on this seemingly futile mission: So Moses returned to the Lord and said, "O Lord! Why have You harmed this people? Why have You sent me? Since I have come to Pharaoh to speak in Your name, he has harmed this people, and You have not saved Your people." (Exodus 5:22-23) In this week's Torah portion, we read G-d's elaborate response to Moses’ argument. There are many ways G-d’s response is interpreted, the following is one explanation. What do we do when we are trapped in a metaphorical Egypt? What do we do when we see no way out of our current difficulty and challenge? When Moses cried out to G-d, instead of providing a direct answer, G-d began by evoking events of the past, His covenant with the Patriarchs, Abraham, Issac, and Jacob: I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob with [the name] Almighty God, but [with] My name Hashem, I did not become known to them. And also, I established My covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their sojournings in which they sojourned. (Exodus 6:3-4) Then G-d went on to talk about future events, the giving of the Torah and the entry into the land of Israel: And I will take you to Me as a people, and I will be a God to you, and you will know that I am the Lord your God, Who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will bring you to the land, concerning which I raised My hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, and I will give it to you as a heritage; I am the Lord. (Exodus 6:7-8) G-d conveyed to Moses that the way to be free is to raise oneself above the moment. This moment may be difficult, we may be trapped in Egypt, yet we are free if we realize that this moment does not define us. We are part of a bigger story. We are part of a greater history. We are a link between an illustrious past and a bright future. The same is true in our personal life. To experience liberation in a moment of challenge and difficulty, is to know that this challenge, this moment, this failure, or this setback does not define us. We are greater than the moment. The setback is here not to define us but as a springboard to bridge our past and our future, to help us reach a deeper dimension of our life, a greater chapter in our story.