Im yirtza Hashem we will all shortly declare at the end of the maggid portion of the Haggadah with,"In every generation one is obligated to envision himself as if he left Mitzrayim."
The Rambam embellishes this obligation even more by writing "As if he left right now from the enslavement in Mitzrayim." This is quite a mandate for us to carry out thousands of years later, who have never seen the likes of Mitzrayim or anything like it. In fact, the Alter of Kelm famously comments that of all the mitzvos of the seder night, this is by far the most difficult one to fulfill.
This year, although we certainly would have opted not to choose this route, we have been given the opportunity to feel in some small measure, what it means to identify with the Jews that were redeemed from slavery in Mitzrayim. This of course is due to the events happening in Eretz Yisrael as we hear and see how Acheinu Beis Yisrael have endured unspeakable hardship and horror under their tormentors, and merited a ge'ula of their own. Rav Yisrael Salanter, the Alter's own rebbe and mentor, would stress the importance of visualizing events in our minds that we learn about, to make them "b'chush", real, and therefore more relatable. If Hakadosh Baruch Hu has decreed this churban in our own lifetimes, for all of us to see,we must seize that opportunity to help in feeling the euphoria of ge'ula from Mitzrayim and use it as a vehicle to fulfill our sacred avodah at the seder.
In fact, the abovementioned Rambam instructs us to describe to our children how we were slaves just like the slaves we are familiar with (in his time) in order to drive the point home as vividly as possible and dramatize what ge'ula must have felt like. No doubt, the generation that merited ge'ula from Churban Europe has no difficulty giving the messages and feelings over to their children and beyond. Many of them do indeed go into great detail when singing V'hi She'amda and other appropriate parts of the Haggadah. We are mandated to do the same to the best of our ability.
On the other hand, we are equally as obligated to share the incredible messages of emunah and bitachon that we have been witness to. The galus in Mitzrayim may have felt endless at the time, but as the gemara tells us ,we were redeemed in the merit of our unwavering emunah in the ge'ula. Ba'alei Mussar have taught us that the very fact that we still exclaim L'shana Haba'a B'Yerushalayim every year, despite one disappointment after another, is a merit in and of itself that could give us more zechusim than even previous generations. We have endured longer than everyone before us and yet never given up hope.
As we partake of our four cups of wine and recall the four expressions of ge'ula associated with them, let us draw strength from the challenging times we are experiencing, focusing on the incredible rays of hashgacha pratis that we have seen amongst the darkness , and declare once more for all time, L'shana Haba'a B'Yerushalayim. | 
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