Book Review : Influence of the Exodus on America

Exodus and Revolution by Michael Walzer (Basic Books: $15.95)

Because author Michael Walzer is a professor of social science (at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton), you know that he is not going to concern himself much with deities and miracles but rather with people. To him, the Hebrew experience in Egypt was that of the subjugation of an oppressed class, whose deliverance was their revolution. In this book, he shows that this historic event affected not only all future Jewish thought but the ideas of latter-day radicals as well.

And we are not talking just about Savonarola or Lenin, although both are frequently mentioned. The American Revolution was also influenced by the exodus from Egypt, so much so that, in 1776, Benjamin Franklin proposed that the Great Seal of the United States show Moses with his rod lifted and the Egyptians drowning, whereas Jefferson preferred to show a column of Israelites marching through the wilderness. And the pyramid on the back of our dollar bill is definitely Egyptian.

Before a revolution, there has to be oppression, but Walzer also dwells on the morbid attraction that Egypt held for the Israelites. The Torah claims that many had abandoned circumcision; others were fascinated by the corruption and luxuries of Egypt. They remembered the “fleshpots” and “murmured” about returning there the moment things got difficult in the desert. But they had merely been servants of the state, not chattel slaves that were bought and sold, and Walzer reminds of the Torah’s insistence on kindness to strangers and servants, “for you were strangers in Egypt.”

First Counterrevolution

Whether unhappy strangers or oppressed slaves, they got out and went to Sinai, where the incident that Walzer calls the “great crisis” of the Exodus takes place: the episode of the golden calf. Walzer considers this primitive revelry the first counterrevolution. Just as the rabbis have been ever since, so Walzer is greatly disturbed over Moses’ overreaction in gathering his followers and slaying thousands of the calf worshipers. Was Moses, he asks, a Machiavellian prince because, as Lenin might have said, “it had to be done”? Even the Bible, as Walzer is careful to point out, disassociates itself from that slaughter: “Thus sayeth the Lord,” Walzer quotes Moses about these killings, but reminds us that the Lord’s command is never heard, only stated.

Walzer prefers what he calls a social-democratic view of Moses, calling him a teacher and defender of the people, always arguing with God and trying to mitigate God’s wrath. One needs patience, he says, in dealing with “those who’ve been oppressed for so long,” and “a counterrevolution cannot be defeated by force alone.” At any rate, Moses may have won the battle of the golden calf, but he apparently lost the war. The Bible has him moving his tent away from the people, and Aaron, who started the entire orgy, is elevated to high priest and, with his Levites, gains control over worship services.

The Covenant with God intrigues Walzer. He makes, as does the Bible, a sharp distinction between the actual deliverance, which was unconditional (“I will bring you out of Egypt”), and the upcoming life in Canaan. In that new life, there are to be conditions, a contract, the fulfillment of which depends on a moral attitude. “If you walk in my ways,” says God ( threatens is perhaps a better word), then, and only then, will Israel live in peace and prosperity.

Making a Moral Decision

The acceptance of the Covenant was a moral decision on the part of a people. Until then, God had made all the decisions. At Sinai, the people made what Walzer calls “a freewill” choice, perhaps exchanging a physical Egypt for a spiritual one. And this time, the “people,” in a major step forward in social relations, included women and children, by contrast with Eden, where God spoke only to Adam.

What’s more, the Covenant was made not only between God and Israel, but also by the people with one another, thus establishing the principle of social and communal responsibility. And it was binding on all future generations (“not only to those here today, but with him who is not here today”). This theme of communal responsibility is restated in the Mayflower Compact and our Declaration of Independence and Constitution. With the Covenant safely under way, the people can now march toward the Promised Land.

Or can they? “Ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation,” says the Bible, indicating the future tense, just as the “land of milk and honey” is a promise of the future. But to get there, the Israelis must work for it, just as they must obey the laws of God if they want to be a holy nation. Walzer likens this promise of utopia in Canaan to the Puritan holy commonwealth and, later on, to Lenin’s vision in which the “state will wither away” because it is no longer needed.

Walzer sees two divergent thoughts in the Exodus. The first, the Mosaic view, is the long, slow, 40-years-in-the-desert route, with painstaking physical and mental preparations. This mirrors the view of the leftist Zionists, who started dredging swamps on their way to a perfect society. The other view, that of today’s Begin rightists, speaks of Messianic deliverance, and anything that will effect such deliverance is sanctioned. Messianic Zionism will settle the West Bank because that is God’s will. The zealots who believe this seem to forget that in their haste to build God’s kingdom, they are about to subject others to Pharaonic dependence.

Walzer leans toward Moses, the realist, who knew that no utopia was awaiting the Israelites. That’s why the Bible is replete with laws concerning damages for injuries, punishment for even the smallest infraction and strict regulations about treating servants. With Moses, the state will never “wither away.” A better life is possible, yes, but only if you work for it. God will not just hand it to you. At the end, Walzer says that if you really want to march forward into a better tomorrow, you must start out, as Moses did, even if you cannot see the Promised Land and even if you know, as Moses knew, that you will not reach it yourself.