# Why Didn't Moses Talk About Freedom?

> Days before the Israelites walk out of Egypt, with the greatest empire of the ancient world on its knees, Moses stands up to speak. He says nothing about freedom, nothing about the land, nothing about the road ahead. So what could matter more at that moment than all of these?

By David Raitan · 2026-01-22 · Parashat Bo · https://torahmeirah.com/en/parasha/bo/bo-5786

## In short

Days before the release from Egypt, Moses does not talk about freedom or the land. He talks about the future, and the duty of parents to teach their children. The Sages understood that children must be encouraged to ask, and taught how to ask.

This goes against history, from "seen, not heard" to the condemnation of Socrates. Judaism is based on asking: Abraham, Moses, Jeremiah and Job all ask, and God answers with deeper questions. Hebrew had no word for obey, only lishmoa: to hear, understand, internalize and respond.

To defend a country you need an army; to defend a society you need schools. So Jews became the people whose fortresses are schools and whose heroes are teachers. But it is done with love, not authoritarianism, because only what you love can you pass on. That is liberty, of the body and of the mind.

*These ideas grew out of reading and meditating on Rabbi Sacks's 10 to 15 weekly essays on the parasha, and on his books and worldview, and often use his own words.*

Israel is days before the final release from Egypt, and Moses is about to address them, after 210 years of oppression, enslavement, and the act of slow genocide: killing the Israelite kids and crushing Israel's spirit. Now, after all the signs and miracles that brought the greatest empire of the ancient world to its knees, they're about to go free.

But Moses, instead of talking about freedom, or the land they're going to go to, or their next journey, their next steps, what's going to happen, instead does something remarkable. He doesn't talk about all that. Instead, he uses that time to talk about the future, to talk about education and the duty of the parents to teach their children.

We see here three of the four passages of the questions of the kids in the Haggadah: the wise one, the rebellious or wicked one, the simple one, and the one who does not know how to ask. And thus the Sages understood that it is the task of the father to hear his children's questions and encourage them to ask questions. And if they don't know how to ask questions, ask the questions yourselves, and help them ask questions, and teach them to ask questions, and give them answers.

And this is not natural at all. To the contrary, it goes against history. There is a saying that children should be seen, not heard. This is a tragedy. And the same thing we see in Athens, in ancient Greece, where Socrates, who was a person known for going around and asking questions and teaching people to ask questions, was condemned by the citizens of Athens for corrupting the youth.

But in Judaism it is the contrary. Children are to be encouraged to ask questions. It is a parent's duty, in fact, to teach the children to ask questions, because that's how they grow.

In fact, in Judaism the faith is based on asking questions. Abraham asked God, "Shall the Judge of all the earth not do justice?" Moses asked God, "Lord, why have You brought trouble on this people?" And Jeremiah asked, "Why do the wicked prosper? And why do the faithless live at ease?" The whole book of Job is constructed on these fundamental questions. And in fact, God responds with even more and deeper questions.

Judaism is not a religion of obedience. In fact, there's no word for obedience. Even though we have 613 commandments, we don't have a word for obedience. In fact, in modern Israel, when we had to reconstruct our language, we had to borrow the word *le-tsayet* from Aramaic, because Hebrew did not have such a word. We have *lishmoa*, which doesn't mean to obey. In fact, it means to hear, understand, internalize and then respond. It is a dynamic action, not just to obey. It is built into the Hebrew consciousness. The highest duty is to seek to understand God, not simply to obey Him.

Israel, about to gain their freedom, were told to become a nation of educators, because the Torah is teaching that freedom is not won on the battlefield, in the political arena or in court. It is won in schools and in the human imagination and will. To defend a country you need an army. To defend a society you need schools. You need families. You need educational systems through which its ideals are passed on from generation to generation, never lost, and clear where they come from and where they're going and what they stand for. Their ideals are never lost, never obfuscated and never disappear. And thus Jews became the people whose fortresses are schools, whose heroes are teachers and whose passion was education.

The result was that in the first century Jews created the first school, the first universal compulsory education, where children at the age of six or seven had a structured education system. England or the United States did not have compulsory universal education until the 19th century. But here we are in the first century, and Jews already had universal compulsory education.

As Maimonides says in his code of law: "If a city has made no provision for the education of the young, its inhabitants are placed under a ban until teachers have been engaged. If they persistently neglect this duty, the city is excommunicated, for the world only survives by the merit of the breath of schoolchildren."

This is fundamental. It is not because of a constitution that we have freedom, but because of the values that we each uphold. As the American justice Judge Learned Hand put it: "Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it."

And that's why Jews put education first. That's why, when other nations created pyramids and towers and impressive pantheons and all these buildings, we created houses of study. We created synagogues. We created places where people can study from each other and learn and educate each other. We take pride in mental agility, in debates, in arguments, in seeing the other side of the disagreement, and in intellect and understanding and learning. And this is why we are overrepresented in scholarship. Jews have always been among the sharpest minds in the world and overrepresented there. We have been literate for almost all of Jewish history, and we took pride in that, in teaching our kids to read and write.

We believe intelligence is God's greatest gift to humanity. And not only do we see wisdom in our tradition, but we also bless other nations' great scholars. We admire the others. As the historian Paul Johnson writes, rabbinic Judaism was "an ancient and highly efficient social machine for the production of intellectuals." Most of that had to do, and still has to do, with the absolute priority Jews have always placed on education and schools. Religious study has been seen as the highest religious duty, and teaching the highest vocation.

But not in an authoritarian way. Always by encouraging the children to ask questions, not by imposing anything from above, but by hearing them out, hearing their problems or questions, and interacting with them in a loving way, as we see in the parsha of Shema. We first have to love God with everything we have. And then we teach our children, because only when you love something, that's when you teach it. That's when you can pass on that love. Not by hatred and fear and authoritarianism, but by love and teaching and hearing your children. That is liberty. Not just of the body, but of the mind.

But it is also important to teach that not every question has an immediate answer. Some take time to understand, and may be understood through age or experience or great intellectual preparation. Yet others are beyond our collective comprehension at this stage. Darwin never knew what a gene was.

The only way to change the world is by education. You have to teach children the importance of righteousness, of justice, of compassion. You have to teach that freedom is only sustained by laws and habits of self-restraint. You have to constantly remind your children, your family, your kids of history, of our lessons of history. We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, oppressed, because those who forget the bitterness of slavery eventually lose their commitment and courage to fight for freedom. And empower our children to ask, to argue, to challenge, and share the values and history of Israel.

## For the Shabbat table

1. Moses could have talked about anything that day. What would you have said to a people about to go free?
2. What question did you once ask that changed how you see something?
3. How do you answer a question when you don't know the answer?
4. Kids: What is the best question you asked this week, and who did you ask?

## Sources

- [Exodus 12:26–27 (when your children ask)](https://www.sefaria.org/Exodus.12.26-27)
- [Exodus 13:8 (you shall tell your child)](https://www.sefaria.org/Exodus.13.8)
- [Exodus 13:14 (when your child asks)](https://www.sefaria.org/Exodus.13.14)
- [Pesach Haggadah, The Four Sons](https://www.sefaria.org/Pesach_Haggadah,_Magid,_The_Four_Sons)
- [Genesis 18:25 (Abraham: the Judge of all the earth)](https://www.sefaria.org/Genesis.18.25)
- [Exodus 5:22 (Moses: why have You brought trouble)](https://www.sefaria.org/Exodus.5.22)
- [Jeremiah 12:1 (why do the wicked prosper)](https://www.sefaria.org/Jeremiah.12.1)
- [Job 38:4 (God answers with questions)](https://www.sefaria.org/Job.38.4)
- [Deuteronomy 6:4–7 (Shema: love, then teach)](https://www.sefaria.org/Deuteronomy.6.4-7)
- [Bava Batra 21a (schooling from age six or seven)](https://www.sefaria.org/Bava_Batra.21a)
- [Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Torah Study 2:1 (a city without schoolchildren)](https://www.sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Torah_Study.2.1)
- [Berakhot 58a (the blessing on sages of the nations)](https://www.sefaria.org/Berakhot.58a)
- [Rabbi Sacks, Freedom’s Defence](https://rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation/bo/freedoms-defence/)
- [Rabbi Sacks, The Necessity of Asking Questions](https://rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation/bo/the-necessity-of-asking-questions/)
- [Rabbi Sacks, The Story We Tell](https://rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation/bo/story-we-tell/)
- [Rabbi Sacks, The Spiritual Child](https://rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation/bo/the-spiritual-child/)