He said to Moses: Tell Israel that they are to be redeemed during this month. At the time, Moses said to the Holy One blessed be He, "Master of the Universe, You told us we would be enslaved four hundred years, and they have not yet passed. He said to him: They have already passed, since it says: For lo, the winter is passed". The righteous ones immediately bared their heads, which were covered, in keeping with the text, "The flowers appear on the earth". This Midrash cried out to me, as if to say, "Seek Me, and you will live". The Rishonim commented on it divinely in the past, and even I, in all modesty, have commented on it elsewhere. I am now directed to innovate.
When the righteous People of Israel found themselves in dire straits, the Tribe of Levi, who are righteous in their own right, seeing the People of Israel undergoing the hardship of enslavement, cried out to G-d, thinking that all hope was lost, heaven forbid. They thought that they had been judged as slaves, G-d forbid, as was written in the name of our master the HA'ARI [Rabbi Isaac Luria Ashkenazi, 1534 – 1572]: Pharaoh knew deep secrets, and so when the Israelites saw that Pharaoh enslaved them with hard labor, they believed he must certainly have been aware that they had been sentenced to slavery. They thought it was a mitzvah to enslave them, in keeping with the saying, 'a king who was angry with his slave'. Had Pharaoh known that the Israelites are to be judged as sons, he would not have enslaved them, fearing the king, the King of the Universe. Therefore, the righteous of Israel and the Tribe of Levi covered their heads, as though in mourning for themselves. They accepted the bitter sentence, believing they were unworthy of being redeemed in the World to Come, and unworthy of the Torah; that the angels had won, as mentioned above and, moreover, that they did not merit the Land… They concluded that they were nearly worthless…But upon hearing that G-d had said that the end of the hardship of enslavement – likened to winter – had passed, they realized that the hardship of enslavement had reached its reckoning, and that they were to be judged as sons. This is the reason that they bared their heads and rejoiced.