Why Is The Exodus Story Foundational?
On The Wisdom of Ex-Slaves
The Torah isn’t just a book of instructions; it’s a book of stories. And the central story is that of a people moving from slavery to liberation. Why? That the story has travelled far and wide, influencing many cultures, indicates that some of its lessons may be universal. What are they?
Below are six possibilities. Which do you resonate most with? What would you add?
1) Slavery in Egypt serves as “field research.” If you want to build a good, or even just better society, start by experiencing what it’s like to be at the bottom of a bad one.
2) Slavery in Egypt is so awful that it positions everything else as a blessing. Gratitude is something we should all feel, but is most easily accessed by those who have suffered the worst, and don’t take their present conditions for granted.
3) Suffering possibly enables compassion. If you’ve been a victim, you are possibly better able to care for other victims. Counter-argument: suffering does not inevitably lead to moral growth. It’s just as possible to learn the lesson of self-interest and ego-centric survivalism-at-all-costs.
4) Ex-slaves have something to prove. As Joshua Wolfe writes, “chips on shoulders put chips in pockets.” If you are born into luxury you are less likely to aspire than if you are born into hardship. An outsized percentage of U.S. entrepreneurs are immigrants and children of immigrants. Maybe the Torah/God wants the Israelites to be a nation of strivers and this is only possible if they’ve been through the wringer. (This, by the way, is Hegel’s argument. Hegel notes in his section on the Master-Slave dialectic that it is the consciousness of slaves that propels historical progress, while the consciousness of masters is complacent, stagnant, and, in the words of Ross Douthat, “decadent.”)
5) The story of liberation is adaptable across contexts. For people in a state of difficulty, it is a story of hope, a way of finding freedom in the midst of hardship. For people in a state of relative comfort, it’s a way of reminding them to yearn for more—to aspire to more than comfort. The archetype of an Exodus tale, at its best, comforts the uncomfortable and discomforts the comfortable.
6) The story disrupts the neat categorization of people into oppressor/oppressed or constrained/free, showing that most people are complex. The Exodus tale affirms Israelite trauma without reducing Israelites to victims. It affirms Israelite power without idolizing power as an end in itself, and without acknowledging the battle scars that came with it.
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