“If God had not delivered us from Egypt we would still be slaves”? Really?

Question

One part of the Pesach seder that has always bothered me is saying that if God had not taken us out of Mitzrayim at that time we would still be slaves today. This seems lacking in faith in God; surely if not then, He would have had His reasons and would have redeemed us at a later time. Why do we hold that that single point in time was our only opportunity for redemption from slavery?

Edit: as pointed out in one of the answers, this translation of "mesheubad" was flawed, though the broader point about this being pretty much our last chance for redemption still holds (as discussed in some of the answers).

Answer 1

Similar to what @ShmuelBrin said, but on more of a psychological level:

As brought by theyeshiva.net, The Maharal of Prague (Gevurot Hashem 61) explains what happened when the Jews left Egypt:

The Exodus of Egypt, he suggests, was not merely a political and geographical event, in which slave laborers were allowed to leave a country and forge their own destiny. It was also an existential mutation, in which the gift of freedom was “wired” into the very psyche of a people. With the Divine liberation from Egyptian bondage, a new type of person was created—the Free Man: The individual who will never make peace with oppression and who will forever yearn for liberty. The Exodus implanted within the soul of the Jew an innate repulsion toward subjugation and an inherent quest for liberty.

If G-d would have waited even a second longer to take the Jews out of Egypt it would have been too late. G-d could have taken them out later, but by that point they would never have been able to change their state of mind, they, and by extension us - their descendants, would always considered themselves slaves.

The "Free Man" of the Maharal could never have existed.

You can take the Jew out of Egypt, but you can't take the Egypt out of the Jew, so to speak.

As it was the Jews didn't feel truly free of the Egyptians until they saw their bodies washed up on the shore of the Red Sea, and even after that they complained many times in the desert that they wished to go back to Egypt. (In fact, if I remember correctly, this is one of the reasons given why the Jews had to wait a generation before entering the land)

So it's not that that was a single point of redemption, as much as it was the last possible time the Jews could have remained in Egyptian bondage and still be able to truly be free once they were redeemed.

Answer 2

You need a more precise translation.

Had God not taken us out of Egypt, then we, our children, and grandchildren would have been indebted to Pharaoh.

Hebrew me-she-ubad, as used regarding real estate on lien for paying potential debts.

Had things worked out for our release in other fashions, we would have still owed Pharaoh one. Only by the dramatic show that it was clearly G-d's power, and Pharaoh's not, that we didn't feel indebted to Egypt anymore.

Though note that 800+ plus years later, when Israel was under Babylonian sovereignty and things went south, who did the Jews go running to? Egypt! Apparently the connection runs deep.

Answer 3

We were at the 49th rung of impurity. We were already idolaters. 4/5 of the Jews didn't want to leave. If we would have waited a little more we would have gotten to the 50th rung which means we would have been too far gone.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe explains that is why we had to run out of Egypt. The evil was still strong and we went out only because of Hashem's great kindness. When Moshiach will come, we will go out calmly, because by then evil will be uprooted. There will not be any danger of us falling back.

Answer 4

To sum up, there are two answers.

1. The translation is not accurate. We would not still be slaves, rather we would owe one to Pharoah. We would be indebted.

2. If we had not been redeemed, then the Jewish people would have ceased to exist as a separate entity. This is reflected in the idea that only 1/5 th of the Jewish people left. Or that we were at the 49 th level of Tumah. Meaning, the end of the Jewish people would have been that we were slaves to Pharoah. The Bnei Yisroel, would have became the same as the Hittites, or any other ancient people that we only know about from archaeology.