Great days are a typical event in the life story of any people. Every nation has a calendar date when they stop, look and listen, accompanied by a backward glance momentarily upon the way by which they have come. We Americans have our Fourth of July; the French, their Bastille Day; and the English - they have so many Victoria, Waterloo, Trafalgar, and so on. Earlier than any of those were the ancient Jews, and among their revered traditions was especially the day of liberation from Egyptian bondage. Great days for the Jews, however, had a dimension often overlooked in ours: their great days kept both past and future in focus. The past reminded them of a time of deliverance, while the future held up a vista of the realization of national and religious ideals. Past deliverances were signs of…