Egypt without being able to leaven their bread (the teacher must explain the meaning of the word leaven), they made it a law to eat _maẓẓot_ during that festival. Can you tell me of some of the other things on the Seder table on Pesah? (As they are mentioned, let the teacher explain their significance.) When you saw all these things at the Seder table, didn't you always feel like asking what they all meant? How many of you have ever said the נִשְׁתַּנָּה מַה on Seder night? Well, that contains a number of such questions. When you were through reading them your father began to read from the Haggadah, did he not? He read the answer, which explains why we celebrate Pesah, and this is the way it begins: 'Slaves were we in the land of Egypt, and the Lord, our God, brought us forth from thence with a mighty hand, and an outstretched arm, and if the Holy One, blessed be He, had not brought forth our ancestors from Egypt, we and our children and our children's children might still have continued in bondage to the Pharaohs in Egypt. Therefore, even if we were all great scholars, all men of understanding, all learned in the Torah, it would, nevertheless, be our duty to tell about the departure from Egypt, and the more one tells about the departure from Egypt, the more one is to be praised.'" The children should be encouraged to discuss very freely the celebration of the Passover, as observed in their own homes, as this is an excellent opportunity of correlating their school instruction with their home life. CHAPTER VII ISRAEL AT THE RED SEA Exodus 13.17 to 15.21 =Interpretation.= With this chapter a new period in Jewish history begins, the formative period, during which the unorganized horde of refugees from Egyptian bondage is given the character of a great nation through the providential circumstances of its history and the inspired genius of its leader. The period is one that is replete with miracles. Modern rationalism may attempt to explain them away, and it is quite possible that events which, had we experienced them, we might have ascribed to the operation of natural laws, were felt by our ancestors with their more limited knowledge of nature to be miracles, and were regarded as such. But, however we may represent to our minds the incidents that took place, we must recognize in them the hand of Providence and not merely a historic chance. We may, if we wish, regard the parting of the Red Sea as a tidal phenomenon, the pillar of cloud and flame as a volcanic cloud, but we must, in that case, believe that this tidal phenomenon and this volcanic cloud were designed for the guidance of our people. No teacher who lacks the faith that the various vicissitudes of our people in the wilderness were intended to preserve them and to prepare them for their historic career, as the standard-bearers of the Torah, can fittingly teach this period of our history for, without such a conception, a majority of the events recorded would be meaningless.