Rarely have I felt more strongly than I have these past two days the connection between the now of the news and the then of religious memory. On the one hand those remarkable images from Baghdad: allied tanks in front of presidential palaces, scenes of jubilation on the streets, that defining image of Saddam's statue toppling and falling - massive and seemingly strong on the outside but empty of all human content within. That's freedom now.

But at the same time, in Jewish homes throughout the country, we've been getting ready for Passover, the festival in which we re-enact another moment of liberation 3300 years ago when in the days of Moses the Israelites prepared to say goodbye to their own experience of tyranny. That's freedom then.

And for once the connection between them isn't artificial or contrived but deep and real. For me it's summed up in the moment when Moses addresses the Israelites on the brink of the exodus: in the 12th and 13th chapters of the book of Exodus. Moses does a surprising thing. He doesn't talk about liberation or about a golden future, the "land flowing with milk and honey." He doesn't even talk about the difficulties that lie ahead, what Nelson Mandela called the Long Walk to Freedom. Instead, three times, he talks about parents and children and the duty to hand the story on to future generations, which is what we do on Passover to this day. It's one of the deepest of all insights into what it takes to make a free society.

Freedom - Moses was saying - doesn't come in a day. It's the work of many lifetimes. And what counts is the story we tell our children. To defeat a tyrant you need an army; but to defeat tyranny you need education. Every year you and your children must taste the unleavened bread of affliction and the bitter herbs of persecution so that future generations never take liberty for granted. Freedom may be won on the battlefield but it's sustained in the human heart. Therefore said Moses don't just celebrate; educate.

I give thanks for the courage of those who fought this war; and offer prayers for the people of Iraq that they may celebrate their own festival of freedom. But there's still too much hatred out there in the world, too much rage and readiness to resort to violence. So I have one more prayer this Passover: that the nations of the world finally acknowledge that what we teach children tomorrow is as important as the victories we celebrate today.

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