Galileo Galilei was persecuted because he thought forbidden thoughts; Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake because he held dangerous beliefs. In 17th-century Europe, free thinkers faced persecution. Scientists, philosophers, and religious dissenters risked their reputations, freedom, and even lives to challenge accepted norms. Many saw no future in the world they knew and sought escape to a new world across the Atlantic – America.
It's tempting to depict the journey from the Old World to the New World as a passage from darkness to light. But many migrants felt not that they were abandoning the past, but rather reenacting it. To them, Europe was Egypt, America the Land of Canaan, and crossing the Atlantic, their personal Exodus. This consciousness animated not just the early American settlers but the nation's founders over a century later. Many saw King George III as the embodiment of King Pharaoh, and Benjamin Franklin even proposed the crossing of the Red Sea for the Great Seal of the United States.
The Americans were not alone. When battling for national liberation, the Dutch saw themselves as the new Israelites, the modern-day Exodus story. The English shared similar sentiments, and as the philosopher Michael Walzer showed, many Western peoples struggling for freedom cast themselves as Hebrews defying their Egyptian oppressors.
Notably, when Martin Luther King Jr. demanded full civil rights for all Americans regardless of race, he appealed to the American establishment with Moses' cry: "Let my people go." The metaphor had flipped; the American system, founded by those who saw themselves as breaking free from Egypt, was now perceived as the Egypt from which liberation was needed.
What happened? Here's what didn't – this was not about freedom-seeking leaders and activists reading, studying, analyzing, and interpreting the Exodus story. Rather, they were reliving it.
Every few years, the question resurfaces – "Is Exodus a story true?" That is, does the narrative we tell reflect actual historical events? Among archaeologists and historians, there is no consensus. Perhaps we should rephrase the query. We do not know if the Exodus story is real, but we know that historical events in the West have tried to mirror the Exodus story. Great stories are not measured by how accurately they depict the past, but by how they shape the future.
Two perspectives
The Exodus story, a spectacle of "blood, fire, and pillars of smoke," is a tale of wielding extraordinary power. But perhaps the greater drama is not of the story of power, but of the power of the story – its ability to magnetize human history and seduce those who encounter it into becoming consumed by it, ceasing to merely observe the story and beginning to be the story.
The proven power of the Exodus story is a significant component of the cultural patriotism Zionism sought to cultivate. The Bible is a national book, created by the Jewish people and tells their story, yet this very book shaped the consciousness of vast swaths of humanity. The opening passage of Israel's Declaration of Independence sees the Bible's universal influence as the Jewish people's greatest historical achievement: "In the land of Israel, the Jewish people came into being. Here their spiritual, religious, and political identity was shaped. Here they achieved sovereignty and created cultural assets for all humankind and gave the world the eternal Book of Books."
In other words, we have a story, and all peoples are invited not only to study it, but to live it.
Here are two perspectives on the Exodus story: one from within the story, and one on the story itself. From within, it depicts the ancient Hebrews enslaved in Egypt, rebelling, liberating themselves, and marching to freedom – a story of a solitary people navigating a world that seeks to subjugate and, at times, annihilate it. The second perspective is the inverse: The world draws inspiration from the Jewish people, and in moments when nations seek emancipation from their oppressors, they reenact the ancient Hebrew narrative.
It is almost impossible to reconcile these two perspectives: human reality is replete with base, violent impulses directed at Jews that we must defend against and insulate ourselves from. Yet simultaneously, human reality brims with the influence of Jewish ideas, and we have an ancient, biblical mandate to engage with the world and contribute to its repair. Can we hold both views concurrently?
An optical illusion
Not all can hold these two perspectives at the same time. On the far-Right, there are hyper-nationalistic Israelis who seek to withdraw from the world; on the far-Left, there are highly universalistic Israelis who seek to dissolve into it. These two groups are homogeneous; their value systems are built on a single foundational tenet – unbridled nationalism devoid of universal humanism on the extreme Right; universal humanism untempered by nationalism on the post-Zionist Left. Most Israelis are not homogeneous, but rather, hybrids – humanistic and nationalistic concurrently.
One of the profound processes unfolding in Israeli society in recent months is the shared realization of the great optical illusion to which we had fallen victim. We thought Israel was divided in two – nationalists versus universalists; the Right is nationalist, the Left is universalist, and the tension between them is tearing Israel apart. But this is an optical illusion. Throughout months of war, we keep rediscovering that Israel is not divided into two, but three: the mainstream of Israeli society is hybrid.
When we believe the optical illusion that Israel is divided into two, the hybrid Israelis perceive themselves as the moderate, compromising fringe of one of the two groups. But when divided into three, the hybrid Israelis understand that they are not the fringe of either group, but rather, a group unto themselves – not just Israel's largest, but one capable of uniting and leading it.
The paradox of Passover
The emerging Israeli hybridity amidst the harsh war we are embroiled in is also one of the great hopes arising from it. Israeli hybridity is, in essence, Jewish hybridity, which we encounter in the paradox of Passover. On the Seder night, we recount the story of solitary people in a hostile world, one of whose messages is that in every generation, there are those who rise to destroy us – a story that cultivates suspicion of the world and the inclination to withdraw from it. Yet it is this very story that has been embraced by the world and become a universal tale. The paradox of Passover is the paradox of Israel.
