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Pharaoh and Moses:

Although we have always lived with threats to our physical survival, today\'s sense of uncertainty is heightened by the awareness that military power cannot resolve all the problematic issues we face.
[additional-authors]
April 27, 2000

Uncertainty and anxiety about our future dominate the mood in Israeli society. The peace process that requires territorial compromise, the future of the Golan Heights, the withdrawal from Lebanon are all security issues that fill us with feelings of doubt and uncertainty.

Although we have always lived with threats to our physical survival, today’s sense of uncertainty is heightened by the awareness that military power cannot resolve all the problematic issues we face.

For example, “the secular liberals,” we are told, “want to give the country away and to destroy our spiritual heritage,” while the religious fundamentalists “want us to return to the Dark Ages, to destroy the achievements of modern Zionism, the values of democracy and of liberal legal society.”

This climate is far from conducive to celebrating the holiday of freedom and of national liberation.

When Jews left Egypt, Moses had to struggle to counteract the slave mentality of people unaccustomed to personal responsibility in order to forge a nation that could assume the burden of freedom. The model of a child living under parental authority remains a tempting alternative to the burden of making choices, of having to resolve conflicts between good and good, of weighing and deliberating about criteria for setting priorities among competing moral values and responsibilities. The myth of a single authoritative voice that can lead you in safety and confidence whatever the realities of life is a fantasy that we can escape from the dizzy uncertainties of freedom.

Moses understood the effects of Israel’s slavery, so he led his people into the desert, where they had to face hard and trying conditions. But the most important turning point in the process of nation building was the journey to Mt. Sinai, where Israel became a free people by learning to accept the discipline of the Ten Commandments. Sinai taught Jews to define their identities not only by their shared suffering in Egypt but also by their shared dream of “You shall be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”

Freedom from slavery doesn’t guarantee human freedom unless you learn how to dream and aspire to become a certain kind of human being. The memory of Pharaoh or of Hitler can never build a rich Jewish identity. You must be inspired by the message of a Moses in order to have a meaningful Jewish identity.

The centrality of the Sinai covenant reflects the formative moment in Jewish history when Jews learned to define their identities by a compelling vision of morality and holiness.

In the Exodus story, we had a Moses to bring us to Sinai and to provide us with a conception of how to live as a nation. There were other periods in Jewish history when singular leaders emerged to fulfill such a function. Today, however, with the breakdown of tradition and the predominance of pluralistic secular culture, where different ideologies and values compete for legitimacy in defining Jewish identity and how Torah should be understood, where secular Zionism and nationalism offer a vision of the Jewish people not grounded in the religious convictions of our tradition, where Jews are exposed to the radical diversity of cultures — it is an illusion to believe that a modern Moses could emerge to convince us to accept a single vision, a great and inspiring vision that would unite all Jews together as a nation.

To speak of Jewish unity today requires us to appreciate the diversity that characterizes contemporary Jewish life. Only through the celebration of diversity and the respect for one another’s convictions can we hope to realize the idea of a decent Jewish people. No one philosophy, no one melody can speak to every Jewish soul. We need different voices, multiple teachers and ideas, in order to flourish in Israel and in the Diaspora.

The leaders of the religious establishment in Israel often fail to understand that they cannot impose one form of Judaism on the whole population. The Knesset cannot legislate how Jews should build spiritual meaning into their lives. The Knesset may make decisions about war and peace or about issues involving social justice, welfare and economic well being. But, when it comes to deciding how we should live spiritually as Jews, the battles fought in the Knesset seem gross and inappropriate, for they invariably reduce Judaism to the level of vulgar coalition politics.

Now — more than ever — the celebration of diversity and religious pluralism must become the guiding principles in building our nation.

We must think about the following issues when we consider the future of the Jewish people: Must we sacrifice important dogmatic truths that have defined the Jewish tradition in the past in order to build a viable pluralistic society today? Is the yearning for spirituality necessarily an individualistic and self-centered quest for personal self-realization, or can it become an energizing force in building family and community? Is spirituality an alternative to Torah and halacha? Can we engage our tradition sympathetically without being imprisoned by it?

These are some of the issues that intelligent Jews must face if we are to go beyond defining our identities solely by means of shared memories of suffering. The Holocaust can never be a substitute for Sinai and Torah.

We are a wounded and battered people in need of healing and guidance on how to build our lives as Jews. We are the inheritors of a great legacy. We have survived adverse conditions in history. But today we must ask ourselves: Do we have the will to build a new nation? Do we have the wisdom to realize that after Egypt we must go to Sinai, that the Holocaust and the State of Israel cannot be substitutes for the covenantal moment of Sinai? Jews need a vision and an aspiration, a vision of holiness, an aspiration that can give purpose and meaning to their lives as Jews.

Rabbis Donniel Hartman, Moshe Halberthal, Mordecai Finley and Harold Schulweis will speak on behalf of the Friends of the Shalom Hartman Insitute on Tues., May 2 at 7:30 pm at the Skirball Cultural Center. Call (212) 772-9711 for tickets and information.


David Hartman is founder and director of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem.

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