History shows us that most of the times are intellectual leaders or wise visionaries are the ones who try to convince the ignorant and oppressed masses to improve their situation.

Many times it has happened that the same oppressed people, in order to gain the favor of the oppressors, commit treachery against the leaders who wish to free them.

You may be familiar with the story of Ernesto "Che" Guevara, an Argentinean physician who helped Fidel Castro leading the revolution in Cuba. After a few years of staying in Cuba in a public position, "Che" Guevara pursued his way south to Bolivia, in order to help the oppressed farmers to improve their situation. Farmers in Bolivia don’t live in easy conditions, and worked almost in a situation of slavery just to gain enough not to starve and to be able to work more for the owners of the land.

This is a well known situation not only in Bolivia but also in the rest of Latin America. Ernesto "Che" Guevara brought the oppressed farmers in Bolivia a message of redemption and freedom, a message of hope in a different future where the workers of the land would be the owners of it, but the farmers didn’t understand him. Finally they left him alone, sick and tired, until he was captured and killed.

This is just one history with which I am familiar, but is not the only one. Oppressed people don’t understand messages of redemption. They are too tired to listen to socialist theories of work division, they are too hungry to think of a different future for their children’s.

Moses, the prince of E-+-gypt, raised in Pharaoh’s palace and growing up in the vast desert knows that nothing is better than breathing fresh air. God –on the other hand- has a spiritual gift to give the chosen people, but they don’t care about spiritual gifts or about being special to God.

God sends Moses with a message to the people of Israel:

But the people of Israel, the ones for whom the message was delivered, don’t have the ability to listen.

We read in the Torah:

The children of Israel "did not heed Moses, because of shortness of breath and hard work". The message was to far from their own experience. What do they know about Abraham, Isaac and Jacob? What do they care about being chosen by God? How can they imagine a different world? All do they know is about hard work.

"Although Israel believed in Hashem and in His prophet, they still could not respond. Their crushing enslavement was such that although they would have liked their suffering to stop, they could not even imagine a promising future. This literal interpretation of the verse offered by Ramban describes the Children of Israel at the lowest level of human existence, when one lacks the strength even to hope. Physical distress and exhaustion had sapped their life-giving energy. The Zohar interprets their "shortness of breath" , as a constriction of the spirit, so severe that they were no longer interested in anything but their daily needs"

According to the commentary Imrei Chen, the senses of the people Israel were altered in such a way that they couldn’t understand the language of redemption.

Therefore Hashem commanded Moses and Aaron to do only this: To bring the Children of Israel out of the land of Egypt", as we read:

God understands that He will not be able to find a common language with His people, unless He takes them out of Egypt, and that is the reason God and Moses interrupt the dialogue with the Children of Israel until the Egyptians give up.

The lesson is simple yet profound: nobody, even God, can come with an abstract message of freedom and a promise of a more spiritual life to people whose basic needs are unresolved. That is the reason, explain our Sages, the Torah was not given immediately after the Children of Israel left Egypt. God let them restore their soul for seven weeks, and after the wounds from the lashes cured and after they ate and rested well, He reveled Himself to them in the midst of clouds and fire.

Revolutions fail not because their message, but because the people for whom the message is delivered are not able to listen to it, to digest it.

According to many commentaries, the Children of Israel refused to leave Egypt and God took them out against their will. Like a little child in the middle of the fire who does not understand what’s going on, needs his father to grab his hand and pull him out, the Children of Israel needed God’s direct intervention to take them out of Egypt, as he promised to Israel their father:

And may "He, Who performed miracles for our forefathers and redeem them from slavery to freedom – may He redeem us soon and gather in our dispersed from the four corners of the earth, all Israel becoming friends" Amen.