Happy Holidays!
By definition, a holiday is a celebration, but underneath the food and festivities, there’s always a message trying to get through.
This week, as Passover and Easter arrive side by side, we’re reminded of two stories that begin in the same unexpected place, not with clarity or calling, but with danger, uncertainty, and decisions made without guarantees.
Passover tells the story of liberation. Easter tells the story of renewal. Both result in a different kind of freedom. However, the stories begin much earlier, in moments when survival itself was uncertain. And maybe that’s what makes them matter so much now, because most of us are not living at the “ending” of our story, we’re somewhere in the middle of it. Still becoming. Still shaped by things we didn’t choose.
These ancient stories remind us of something we often forget: you don’t begin as who you are.
You become that over time.
Two Babies, Two Beginnings, One Ancient Pattern
Imagine a world where rulers, when they feel threatened, don’t negotiate, don’t explain, and don’t hesitate. They simply give an order to kill all the boys. Not soldiers or rebels, but infants. Boys under a certain age are eliminated before they can grow into anything that might challenge power. It sounds extreme, but this is exactly the world in which both stories begin.
Passover and Easter both center on the same starting point: two babies born into danger, two lives that had to be protected before they could become anything at all.
Moses is born into slavery, into a system where his people are controlled, monitored, and increasingly feared. Pharaoh looks at the Israelites and sees not families but a future threat. His solution is immediate and preemptive. He orders that every Hebrew baby boy be killed, eliminating the possibility of resistance before it can even begin.
Moses’ mother hides him for as long as she can, living in a constant state of tension where every sound matters and every moment carries risk. Eventually, she realizes something unavoidable: if she keeps him, he will be found. So she makes a decision that is both desperate and deliberate.
She builds a basket, seals it so it will float, and places him inside. This is not surrender. It is the only remaining way to protect him. She is not discarding him. She is placing him where he might be found.
Miriam, his sister, plays a crucial role. She watches from a distance, close enough to see what happens but far enough to remain unseen. This is not chaos. It is a plan under pressure, an act of faith carried out with as much intention as possible under impossible conditions.
Pharaoh’s daughter finds the basket, opens it, and immediately understands what she is looking at: a Hebrew child, one her father has ordered killed. In that moment, she chooses not to follow the system she belongs to. She keeps him. Miriam then steps forward and offers to find a Hebrew woman to nurse the child, completing the plan in a way no one could have guaranteed. Moses is returned to his own mother, who raises him for a time before he is brought into Pharaoh’s household and raised as an Egyptian.
This matters because Moses grows up not knowing who he is. He is educated, protected, and positioned inside the very system that tried to eliminate him. His awareness comes later, and it comes through disruption. One day, he sees an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave. He has likely witnessed this before, but this time he does not look away. He reacts, kills the Egyptian, and hides the body. The next day, when he tries to intervene in a conflict between two Hebrews, one of them confronts him: “Are you going to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” In that moment, Moses realizes both that his action is known and that his identity is not what he believed. He is neither fully Egyptian nor accepted as Hebrew. The structure he has lived within collapses, and he is forced to run. His awareness begins not as a revelation but as a fracture.
Jesus’ story unfolds differently, but the structure is similar. His parents do not go to Bethlehem willingly. A Roman decree forces them to travel there for a census. When they arrive, the town is already full, and they have no resources or status to secure proper lodging. They end up in a place meant for animals, not because it is meaningful, but because it is available.
This becomes critical when the pattern repeats. Herod hears of a child who might become king and responds as Pharaoh did. He orders that the boy be killed. Joseph is warned, and the family leaves immediately for Egypt. The earlier gifts now make sense. They provide the means to survive and escape.
Mary goes into labor there without support or preparation. The birth is physical, exposed, and immediate. Afterward, they wrap the child and place him in a manger, a feeding trough cleared as best they can manage. This is not an ideal beginning. It is simply the best they can do under the circumstances.
They are not entirely alone. Shepherds arrive, people who understand survival and community. They bring presence and likely food because people in that position know how to help. Later, travelers from the East arrive, having followed signs across distance. They bring gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. In the moment, these are not symbolic offerings. They are practical resources. Gold, in particular, can sustain a family that has nothing.
Placed side by side, the two stories reveal a clear pattern. Both begin with danger, both involve systems of power attempting to eliminate a future threat, and both depend on acts of faith and intervention by others. One child is placed into a river with intention and hope. The other is carried across borders with urgency. One is protected by a mother and a sister working together. The other is protected by strangers who arrive at the right moment with what is needed.
Both grow up without a full awareness of who they are. That awareness comes later and changes everything. Moses’ understanding emerges through conflict and action.
Jesus’ awareness seems to emerge more gradually. Each year, his family travels from Nazareth to Jerusalem for Passover, an expected pilgrimage tied to the story of liberation that Moses will one day lead. When Jesus is twelve, they make that journey as usual. On the return, Mary and Joseph assume he is with relatives, but after a full day, they realize he is missing. They return to Jerusalem and find him in the Temple, sitting among the teachers, listening, asking questions, and speaking in a way that surprises those around him. When they ask why he stayed behind, he responds that he must be in his Father’s house. That moment marks the beginning of his awareness that his identity extends beyond his immediate family into something larger.
In both cases, survival is only the beginning. Awareness leads to movement. Moses returns to Egypt and confronts power directly, leading his people out of slavery into uncertainty. Jesus addresses a different kind of constraint, speaking to fear, guilt, and the belief that change is not possible, and offering a path toward internal freedom.
What makes these stories endure is not only what these men eventually do but how they begin. They begin with uncertainty, with people making decisions without guarantees, and with others stepping in at critical moments. A mother lets go of her child because holding on would destroy him. A family gives birth in a place that offers nothing and continues anyway. Strangers appear with what is needed, not all at once, but at the right time.
Over time, a pattern emerges. The people we later call heroes do not start with power or clarity. They begin in situations they did not choose and are shaped by forces they cannot control. At some point, they become aware that the identity they have been living is incomplete. Once that awareness begins, it creates movement.
This is where the stories connect directly to us. None of us is exactly who we first think we are. We are shaped early by family, environment, and necessity. We adopt identities that allow us to function. But those identities are not complete. At some point, something interrupts them, and a question appears: is this really who I am?
Both stories suggest the same answer. Not entirely.
There is something deeper that is not assigned by circumstance or early experience. Recognizing it is not comfortable, and it often requires change and movement away from what is familiar. But without that recognition, there is no real freedom.
This matters more now than ever. There is more noise, more pressure, and more external definition of identity than at any time before. It is easy to remain at the surface. But real change does not happen there. It happens when we begin to understand who we actually are, not who we were told to be or who we became to get through difficult situations.
Once we recognize that our potential is not fixed, everything shifts. Not all at once, but enough to begin. The limits we accepted start to loosen. The version of ourselves we have been living reveals itself as incomplete.
Moses was not born a leader, and Jesus was not born teaching. They became those things over time. The same pattern applies more broadly. Unlimited potential does not mean immediate transformation. It means there is no fixed endpoint. It means there is room to grow, to change, and to become more aligned with who we are. We all have the capacity to become leaders in our own worlds and help those around us.
This leads to a different question. Not who am I supposed to be, but what am I willing to recognize. Once that awareness begins, it tends to move things forward.
Two babies, two beginnings, and the same pattern continuing.
You don’t start as who you are. You become that over time, if you are willing to see it.
Here’s to your personal success,
Professor Marilyn Horowitz
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