Those days are called Chol HaMoed, the intermediate days. Not quite holiday, not quite ordinary. You are in the middle of something that has not finished yet.

That in-between quality reflects something true about where the Jewish people actually were.

The Exodus happened on the first night. But the Jews left Egypt and found themselves at the edge of the sea with Pharaoh’s army behind them. What they did next is what the last days of Passover commemorate: they walked in. The sea had not split yet. They stepped forward anyway. That trust is what the splitting of the sea required, and what it rewarded.

But even that was not the end. They crossed, and then they were in the wilderness. Free, but not........

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