According to the Bible, all Jews are descended from Abraham. (Ritually speaking, this includes those who have converted to Judaism.)

Abraham had a son named Isaac. Isaac had a son named Jacob. Jacob had a whole lot of sons (and at least one daughter).

During a famine, Jacob and his sons moved to Egypt.

Fast forward four hundred years, That family grew to become thousands of people, and had become slaves to Egypt's king, the Pharaoh. They were probably involved in building the pyramids.

The Pharaoh was known for sneaky management practices. For example, according to legend, he would occasionally come down and work alongside the slaves for a day. Wanting to show off for the boss, they would work harder than ever, often setting new records for what they would produce. The Pharaoh would then announce that what they had done that day would be their new minimum productivity quota. They would be punished on any day that they produced less than that.

Once (according to Exodus, chapter five), they asked Pharaoh for permission to go out to the desert for three days for a religious festival. Pharaoh said that if they wanted to go on vacation, they were slacking and not busy enough. While they had been making bricks for their buildings, the straw had been brought to them. The new executive order decreed that from then on they would have to harvest the straw themselves -- but they would still have to make as many bricks as they had before.

One day, the Pharaoh's wizards told him that a boy would soon be born to the Hebrew slaves who would overthrow him. He decreed that all male babies born to them were to be killed immediately. 

With the help of her midwives, a woman from the tribe of Levi hid her newborn son, placing him in a basket in the Nile. His sister, Miriam, knew that Pharaoh's daughter bathed in the river at that spot. When the princess found the basket, Miriam suggested that she get their mother to nurse him. The princess hired the baby's real mother to nurse him and adopted him as her own son. She named him Moses.

Years later, Moses saw an Egyptian taskmaster beating a Hebrew slave. He killed the taskmaster and hid him in the sand. When he found out that people knew that he had done it, he fled to the land of Midian, nearby.

When that Pharaoh died, his son took over. He was even worse. 

When Moses was tending his new family's flock of sheep in the mountain's he saw a bush that was on fire but wasn't consumed. He heard the voice of God coming from the flames. The voice told him that it was time to go back to Egypt and liberate the slaves.

Moses went to the new Pharaoh and asked him to free the slaves. Pharaoh didn't. He showed him several miraculous tricks to convince him that God was on their side. Pharaoh wasn't impressed.

It was time to bring out the heavy miraculous artillery.


haggadah Section: -- Exodus Story
Source: Original