"During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the Israelites groaned because of the work, and they cried out. Their cry went up to Yahveh.  He heard their anguish and remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."  Exodus 2:23-24

While Moses was in Midian, the Israelite slaves reached unbearable levels of suffering.  When it became clear that the new Pharaoh was no better than the old one, the Israelites lost their last ray of hope.

Their cries were cries of pain, not of prayer or repentance, nevertheless YHVH heard them, even though they have forgotten Him. 

People under great stress will either turn to YHVH for help or become angry with Him, blaming Him for their suffering.  In this case, neither reaction took place.  There seemed to have been a breakdown in communication.  Their not turning to Him in either a positive or negative way suggests that the generations of slavery wiped out any connection with their roots and with the Almighty.  This reality was implied by the Prophet Ezekiel.  In thundering wrath against the degeneracy and faithlessness of the Israelites at the time of the destruction of the First Temple, Ezekiel described their helplessness as slaves in Egypt and showed how hundreds of years later they were still ungrateful to YHVH.  Ezekiel recounts the birth pangs of the Israelites as a nation born in slavery:

"As for your birth, on the day you were born, no eye pitied you to have compassion upon you; but you were thrown out in the open field, for you were loathed.  When I (YHVH) passed over you, and saw you weltering in your own blood, I said to you when you were still in your blood, Live!  Yes, I said to you when you were in your blood, Live!  And when I passed over you, and looked upon you, behold, your time was the time of love! I spread my clothing over you, and covered your nakedness; yes, I swore to you, and entered into a covenant with you, says YHVH, and you became Mine. Then I washed you with water; indeed, I thoroughly washed away your blood from you, and I anointed you with oil."  Ezk 16:4-9

Ezekiel compared the Israelite slaves to an abandoned baby whom YHVH picked up and cared for, nursed back to health and adopted as His own.  In return, the 'baby' was ungrateful and gave Him much trouble. 

Ezekiels comparison of the Israelites to a naked baby is a criticism of their spiritual state at that time.  They were like a naked baby because they lost contact with their roots to such a degree that they no longer felt any contact with YHVH, the Elohim of their fathers, and adopted the slavery mentality.  By the time the Israelites reached this stage they were naked in having forgotten the legacy of Abraham.

"For I (YHVH) know him (Abraham), that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of YHVH, to do justice and judgment."  Gen 18:19

When people become occupied in a routine, two things are likely to happen to them.  First, they see their whole life in terms of their occupation and cannot imagine things being any other way. Second, they loose contact with their roots to such a degree that they become irrelevant to their current lifestyle.  It takes great effort and sense of purpose to remain faithful to ones roots when under constant oppression.

Such was the spiritual challenge of the Exodus generation at the time the new Pharaoh came to power.  The Israelites failed in that they did not pass on their faith to the next generation. Their forefathers' faith in YHVH Elohim meant nothing to them: their main concern was their day-to-day survival as slaves under the Egyptians.  They could not imagine life being anything else and   were so far from YHVH that they did not even think of crying out (praying) to Him when they were on the verge of despair. Instead, they allowed the Egyptians to control their minds as well as their bodies, adopting the slavery mentality.  Emerging from this oppression at the time of their Exodus, all Israel experienced a type of the 'new birth', physically and also spiritually.

This has an important lesson today.  We pray that Messiah will come speedily, yet, how well do we serve Him now? Like the Israelites in Egypt, we do not welcome change despite all our praying.  We have adopted the Exile mentality and find that obeying the commandments is too demanding. Few if any of us today are in slavery, but we find ourselves caught up in routines and traditions that we cannot, or do not wish to change. Our challenge - to abandon the Exile mentality and sincerely try to re-discover the long neglected Torah (Bible) teachings in anticipation of His Coming - may it be done speedily in our days.