This Friday night, like Jews all over the world, I'll sit down with my family at a long table and will perform a strange set of rituals in a highly particular order. We'll dip little bits of parsley in salt water and say a blessing and then eat it. We'll eat

horseradish and then later apples cut up with nuts. My family will search the house for a hidden mata, picture a very big

sultine only dryer. But at the heart of all of these rituals is the telling of a story. This particular one is quite famous. It's about these people called

the Israelites who were enslaved in a land called Egypt. It's about 3,000 years old. I suspect you may have heard of it.

Now whether or not you believe that this story

happened literally as the Hebrew Bible tells it, it's inarguable that over many, many generations,

the story has become the ultimate story of persistence.

Go down Moses of faith. of peoplehood.

of peoplehood. And of course and above all of freedom.

And of course and above all of freedom. And not just freedom for Jews, but for people seeking freedom from subjugation all over the world.

Now when Israel was in Egypt, all over the world. That includes here in America.

Indeed I would argue that the story of the exodus is central to

America itself. From the founding fathers of the very start of our nation, to

abolitionists like Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglas, to presidents like Lincoln and Washington,

to civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr.

The themes and symbols and ethics of the exodus story

are an integral part of how American leaders

both inspired and also found inspiration for themselves.

And to tell that story today, a rabbi. My guest today is Rabbi Mayor Solovechik.

Salih, as he's widely known, today teaches at Yeshiva University,

and he's the rabbi at the Spanish and Portuguese synagogue in New York, which also happens to be the oldest congregation in the United States.

Now maybe you're listening to this and you're Jewish and you're like,

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