Exodus and Revolution

I have been reading and studing the book, "Exodus and Revolution" by Michael Walzer. I would like to share with you some of what he wrote that I think is very profound.

The return to Egypt is part of the story, though it exists in the text only as a possiblility: that is why the story can be retold so often.

The story is more important than the events, and the story has grown more and more imortant as it has been repeated and reflected upon.

The Israelities are not magically transported to the promised land; they must march to get there and the march is full of difficulties, crises, struggles, all realisticlly presented as if to invite human as well as divine resolution. The story is a classic narrative, with a beginning, a middle, and an end.

Exodus is a journey forward--not only in time and space.

The book of Genesis is a collection of stories about individual men and women, they are mostly members of one family, a family, moveover, with a singular destiny, but we are focused on individuals. Exodus is the story of a people, hence not a story simply but a history.

Moses, is not a messiah, he is a political leader who succeeds in bringing the Israelites out of Egypt but is unable to bring them into the promised land. Moses needs Aaron to speak and Miriam to sing on his behalf.

Canaan is a promised land because Egypt is a house of bondage.

"But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew" Exod. 1:12

The Israelite slaves could become free only insofar as they accepted thediscipline of freedom, the obligation to live up to a common standard and to take responsibility for their own actions.

The deliverance brings Israel into the wilderness where the conditions of further advance are revealed. Hence we begin "Liberation theology"

In the Haggadah: In every generation let each man look upon himself as if he came forth out of Egypt.

God said, I will bring you into a land flowing with milk and honey, and Ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

Joy and gladness are common descriptions of life in the promised land. A life free from the fear of being encslaved by others. The elimination of misery and exploitation. They shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid. Mic. 4:4

In God's kingdom, all the Israelites will be priests; the nation as a whole will be holy.

Joel had a vision of the messianic age.

Everyone was holy who had shared the Sinai experience, and so there was no need fora leader or a priesthood.

Today it looks like a case of a people living in the promised land but sliding back into Egyptian practices -exactly like the first Israel.

The ethical high point of the Exodus is the march across the desert. More exactly it is the beginning of the march.

Jewish messianic thought, and so all messianic thought, has its origins in the idea of a second Exodus. To make the goal of the second Exodus not Canaan but Eden.

The kingdom of prients is replaced here by a kingdom of rabbis - scholars and sages --and the form of participation is study.

Revolutionary politics is the book of Exodus and Numbers.

Thou shalt not oppress a stranger; for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were stranges in the land of Egypt.