fbpx

If God took the Jews out of Egypt…

If God took the Jews out of Egypt, why didn’t he take the Jews out of Europe during the Holocaust?
[additional-authors]
April 8, 2015

If God took the Jews out of Egypt, why didn’t he take the Jews out of Europe during the Holocaust? Or out of Ukraine during the Khmelnitsky pogroms? Or out of Germany when Crusaders annihilated entire Jewish communities there?

What Jew hasn’t asked such questions?

There may be an answer in one of the best known and frequently cited statements in the Torah, one repeated throughout the year and, of course, at the Passover seder:

“Moses said to the people, ‘Remember this day, when you went out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, for with a mighty hand, the Lord took you out of here, and [therefore] no leaven shall be eaten.’ ” (Exodus 13:3)

“And you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord your God took you out from there with a strong hand and with an outstretched arm.” (Deuteronomy 5:15)

“And the Lord brought us out from Egypt with a strong hand and with an outstretched arm, with great awe, and with signs and wonders.” (Deuteronomy 26:8)

And the Ten Commandments begin with:

“I am the Lord, your God, Who took you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” (Exodus 20:2)

Why all these reminders that God took us out of Egypt — even a commandment to remember that he did?

I have come to believe that the reason it is so crucial that we remember is that God is not necessarily (or perhaps even likely) going to do it again.

Some Jews might find this idea heretical. Emotionally and religiously, they do not wish to confront the possibility, let alone the likelihood, that God won’t intervene to save us from oppressors the way he did for the Jews in Egypt.

But if God will rescue us over and over, why are we constantly reminded that he did it in Egypt and commanded to remember that he did so? After all, if God repeatedly saved the Jews from oppressors, it would be completely unnecessary to remember what God did for us over 3,000 years ago. Isn’t the only reason to remember what was done on our behalf a long time ago that it has not been done since?

That, then, may be the reason it is so important to constantly remind ourselves that God took the Jews out of Egypt.

Just as our parents intervened to save us from danger when we were children, but will not do so once we reach adulthood, so, too, in our infancy God intervened directly. But once we reach adulthood, we are, so to speak, on our own. This doesn’t mean that God doesn’t know us and our suffering. Nor does it mean that he won’t save us again. It means that he cannot be depended upon to save us. 

Of course, we — and all the non-Jews who suffer — wish that God would intervene when confronted with evil. But a moment’s reflection should make it pretty clear that this would end human free will. It would also render life as we know it morally pointless. If God stopped all injustice, we would be moral automatons. And if God stopped some injustices but not all, the question would not only remain, it would be even more acute. Why, God, did you help, let’s say, the Jews, but not the Chinese under Mao, the Ukrainians under Stalin or the Cambodians under Pol Pot? For that matter, why didn’t you save every individual from being murdered and every woman from being raped?

Finally, some Jews might respond that God has in fact saved the Jews from every tyrant just as he saved the Jews from Pharaoh. God, after all, didn’t save all the Jews in Egypt — he allowed hundreds of thousands (adding up perhaps to millions) of Jews to be enslaved over a 400-year period, and only he knows how many Jewish boys he allowed to be drowned at birth, before he intervened. So, then, one can argue today that God has always saved the Jews from oppressors. Not all of them, as we would have wished. But the Jews are still around, and in that sense they were saved from their oppressors.

I, too, believe that God has preserved the Jews since Egypt. It is difficult to offer any other explanation for the unique survival of a people repeatedly exiled, slaughtered and forced to live without a homeland for 2,000 years.

Nevertheless, this survival, as divinely enabled as it may have been, has never been accompanied by anything approaching the overt signs of divine intervention — Moses’ and Aaron’s miracles in Pharaoh’s court, the plagues, the splitting of the sea, the manna in the wilderness, the cloud by day and the fire by night to lead the Jews to Israel – that accompanied the Exodus.

And that is what we mortals have yearned for since Egypt — a miraculous destruction of the gas chambers, for example. 

So, never having had anything approaching that, it is imperative to recall what God did that one time, when he took us out of Egypt. 

Happy Passover.

Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host (AM 870 in Los Angeles) and founder of PragerUniversity.com

Did you enjoy this article?
You'll love our roundtable.

Editor's Picks

Latest Articles

Difficult Choices

Jews have always believed in the importance of higher education. Today, with the rise in antisemitism across many college campuses, Jewish high school seniors are facing difficult choices.

All Aboard the Lifeboat

These are excruciating times for Israel, and for the Jewish people.  It is so tempting to succumb to despair. That is why we must keep our eyes open and revel in any blessing we can find.  

More news and opinions than at a
Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.

More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.

More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.