From Rabbi Mimi Feigelson (Mashpiah Ruchani at Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the American Jewish University) http://ziegler.aju.edu/default.aspx?id=5327

We are often in a rush to get out of uncomfortable situations. We want to solve problems as quickly as we can so that we need not dwell on them. But it appears that bracketing our stay in Mitzrayim with the word 'Mitzrayim' functions as an invitation to actually sit in this space. It seems that the only way out of this constricted state of being is by going through it, not by circumventing it! We can't overcome limitations that we've encountered unless we are willing to own our part in the situation: to be able to name and face our pain, to be able to claim our suffering, to be able to hold our loss. It is only then, when we see ourselves in the light of our darkness that we can truly leave it behind as we walk towards new horizons. We are being asked to dwell in our pain and discomfort so that we will be able to indeed move forward. Without this process, it would appear that we will never be free from that which enslaved us - we would carry it with us, creating new Mitzrayims wherever we journeyed next. We won't be able to truly leave it behind us. We need to be able to name the emotion so that we can find a remedy to heal it.

It is with this in mind that I ask us all to sit one more moment in this discomfort, to own being a 'temporary citizen of Mitzrayim,' so that when we indeed do leave Mitzrayim we can be free. The one last piece, before willing to go back into our personal darknesses, is to also be able to name who the 'holders of light' are in our lives. In our story in the chumash we have Shifra and Puah - the midwives, we have Miriam, Bitya, Moshe and Aharon. In order to walk through this process it is imperative, as the Torah itself teaches us, to be able to identify those who hold on to our vision for us, those who see redemption and freedom on the other side, witnesses of true liberation. It is with their presence on the other side of the darkness that we are able to march through it.