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In 2003, Leon Kass published a book on Genesis (The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis) in which he focused on the life of one family, that of Abraham. Eighteen years later, he continues his exploration of the theme, this time by paying attention to the life of an entire nation. How was Israel formed as that nation with its own identity, laws, and purpose?
Taking the book of Exodus, with its coherent plan and order, as a unity, Kass approaches the text as a naïve reader, as if he does not know what happens next, examining it line by line (sometimes, this ambitious task seems impossible, see for example p. 452-453). Being convinced that every word matters, Kass pays attention to “repetition of words or phrases, puns and echoes of previous uses of the same term, and shifts from prose into poetry and back again” (p. 8) in order to see how the meaning of the story emerges through different literary links. He is also attentive to juxtapositions, lacunae, absences, and silences in the text. By doing so, he does not want to learn about the text, but think with the text. For Kass, “the text has been written not merely to inform the reader about the narrated events. It has been written mainly to form him – to educate him – not only by means of its explicit content and dramatic enactments but also and especially by the ways in which it manages to draw him into its orbit. The book aims not just to teach about, but to be lived with.” (p. 10, emphasis in original) Following this approach, the readers become an integral participant of the story, invited to translate its values into their current way of life. What Kass calls a philosophical reading consists in finding the wisdom from the Bible for today’s readers. Far from being simply “the normative text for the birth of the Jewish people,” Exodus offers to readers of all time important material with which to reflect on subjects of universal interest: “the best beginnings for founding a people,” “the qualifications for leadership,” “the virtues of civic life,” “the bond of civil society,” “the source of law,” “the forms of law,” “the reach of law,” “the purposes of law,” “the forms of governance,” “the sources of trouble and the causes of rebellion,” “and the relation to the divine.” (p. 6)
The book, substantial not only in length (over seven hundred pages), but also in depth, is composed of three parts. In part one (Out of Egypt: Slavery and Deliverance. Exodus 1-15), Kass shows that Pharaoh saw the Israelites as a people before they saw it themselves. “A people, in the new Pharaoh’s view, are a group of numerous ‘others’ who are a threat in case of war, capable of tipping the balance in favor of one’s enemies.” (p. 27) In order to avoid that potential danger, Pharaoh oppressed them and reduced them to cruel slavery. Paradoxically, however, the misery caused by servitude was the starting point of the foundation of Israel as a people. Indeed, when the Israelites cried out to the Lord, he heard them and led them out of Egypt to make of them his people. Notice that the children of Israel became a nation before having a land, an economy and a government. And the Lord asked them to remember the event of their liberation, thus of their foundation, an event that had not yet taken place. By retelling this event, they were to make sure that the Lord be known not only as the Lord of Israel, but also as the Lord of all nations.
In part two (From the Mountain: Covenant and Law. Exodus 15-23), Kass reflects on the meaning of the daily gift of Manna and its contributions to the founding of the Israelite nation. For him, this gift is an invitation to equality: to each according to his needs. “The condition of the world, he writes, is not fundamentally one of scarcity but of plenty, sufficient to meet equally the (unequal) needs of every human being. There is thus no need to hoard against the morrow or toil endlessly, grabbing all you can; there is also no need to regard your neighbor as your rival who may keep you from your livelihood or whose need counts less than yours.” (p. 233-234) And so, the daily gift of manna, enough for all, prevents anyone from storing surplus food and using it to exploit the hungry. It discourages the Israelites, recently slaves in Egypt, from imitating their former masters. Indeed, it is easy to get human beings out of slavery. It is, however, more difficult to get slavishness and tyranny out of their heads. In this sense, the observance of the sabbath is a revolutionary commandment. It introduces a regular day of cessation during the week, which is an idea contrary to Egyptian values.
A new question arises: how to make a self-governing people and a holy nation out of the ex-slaves? Recognized as a people among the peoples for the first time (Ex 19:5), Israel is invited to become God’s own treasure through obedience. By hearkening to God’s voice and keeping his covenant, Israel will become a holy nation. Indeed, “the formal act of covenanting will itself be the decisive people-forming event. Made in public with all of the people united, the berith [covenant] becomes a source of their identity: once they accept the offer, the Israelites will become God’s ‘firstborn son,’ following in his ways. Unlike liberalism’s ‘social contract,’ in which individuals give up certain liberties to safeguard the rest, the covenant will offer guidance for how everyone is supposed to act and live communally. Most important, it will give the people a purpose for their existence: they will gain an enduring national goal that will define and inspire them for generations to come – in principle, forever.” (p. 289)
Notice also that the Lord’s ordinances should be understood in the covenantal context. The laws are there to regulate the relationship among human beings which is an expression of their relationship with God. Moreover, it is through observing the Lord’s laws that Israel comes to know him better, becomes closer to him and worships him in an effective way. “Proper treatment of indentured servants or strangers, no less than keeping the Sabbath or bringing first fruits to the sanctuary, is equally a mode of honoring the Lord and sanctifying one’s life. As in the Decalogue, the ‘political’ and ‘theological’ ordinances are manifestations of the same thing: a teaching for living together as one people, self-consciously looking up to the Lord and his preferred ways.” (p. 344)
The third part of the book (To the Tabernacle: Worship and Presence. Exodus 24-40), the most important one in my view, is devoted to the function of the Tabernacle. For Kass, “the Tabernacle serves as the completion not of cosmogony but of a long historical process, intended from the start to correct for certain unavoidable deficiencies of the Creation: the natural incompleteness of the human being and the impossibility of his gaining completion on his own by looking to ‘the cosmos.’ Far from serving as a microcosm, the Tabernacle is an ‘anti-cosmos’ – a replacement for, and a rejection of, looking with reference on the heavens and the earth.” (p. 591) Of all creatures, the human being, gifted with intelligence, conscience and freedom, is the most godlike. He is more than an animal, but less than a god. He is merely an image whose function is to represent someone else. His ambiguous and incomplete being causes him problems.
Kass reads the golden calf episode as a process of formation for the Israelite people. By removing Moses from their midst for such a long time, God gave them an opportunity to sin against him as so to choose him freely. “They must choose God, he writes, as much as God has chosen them. Until now, their frightened, slavish souls were incapable of such a free choice; it was only in sinning that they gained the freedom to choose God. Just as Adam and Eve’s first act of human freedom was an act of disobedience, so the Israelites’ first true act of national freedom was their disobedient demand that Aaron make them gods. Through acting freely on their own, they were able to experience responsibility, sin, and guilt; suffer estrangement from God; and feel the need for repentance and forgiveness.” (p. 533)
As the leader of the Israelite people, Moses was also tested by God. From the top of the mountain, God informed Moses of the bad news and told him, “Go, get you down; for your people, that you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves.” (Ex 32:7, Kass’s translation) In the Lord’s speech, the people are seen not as his, but as Moses’s. Moreover, it claims that Moses, not the Lord, delivered them from bondage in Egypt. In the face of Moses’s silence, the Lord threatens to destroy the people and tempts Moses with the offer to make of him a great nation. This was a test of Moses’s attitude and spirit. If Moses were not a responsible leader of his people, he would have abandoned them to pursue his personal glory. To his credit, Moses took up the people’s defense rather than accede to God’s offer. From that moment, Moses embraced God’s people as his own.
Having calmed the Lord’s anger, Moses went down from the mountain with the two tables of the commandments written by the Lord. But when he saw the calf and the dancing, he became incensed and broke the two tables, symbol of the covenant between God and the people. Kass sees here a significant element of Moses’s leadership. Through his action, Moses “joins the people in their guilt, in effect taking responsibility for their apostasy. The people’s idolatry violated the covenant, but it was Moses’s act with the tables that literally destroyed it. Instead of abandoning or repudiating his charges, he links his fate with theirs. Even as he pronounces judgment upon their actions, Moses shows himself to be that most rare and noble kind of leader, a person who willingly accepts full responsibility for all sins and errors committed by those under his command, even when they are done without his knowledge or against his orders.” (p. 543) This kindness can be an antidote to the act of violence that takes place later.
After the episode of the golden calf, Moses, as a skillful and persistent leader, restored order to the camp by reestablishing the covenant between the Lord and the Israelite people. Unlike the first time when the tables of the commandments were made by God, in this second time, they were hewn by Moses himself. Thus, “[t]he law is passing more fully into human hands.” (p. 560) Did God or Moses write on the new tables? Kass considers this ambiguity to be deliberate. “With the law about to pass into human hands, on tables pointedly prepared by Moses, and with the intimate conversation and association of Moses and the Lord for forty days and forty nights, it seems right that we should not have to decide whether the writing was done by the Lord or Moses. A co-authorship of the new dispensation, reflecting the agreement miraculously achieved between them, could not be more fitting.” (p. 568)
In the joy of a renewed relationship with the Lord, the Israelite people contributed to the completion of the Tabernacle, recounted in the final six chapters of Exodus. Kass sees a connection between the construction of the Tabernacle and the formation of the Israelite people. At the beginning of Exodus, the Children of Israel were passive slaves in Egypt. Their liberation from bondage was due to the action of God with the help of Moses and Aaron. Now, in a time of peace, they become God’s partners in bringing to completion a major project. They build the Tabernacle in obedience to God’s commands. In so doing, they show that they are able to live under the Law given by God. “Unlike at the golden calf, where they abandoned the law during their leader’s absence, here they zealously adhere to its letter and its spirit. God through Moses commands; the people obey – all of them, gladly, without murmuring. Each one’s obedience to this law involved sacrifice of private treasure for the common good; they were not told just to avoid wrongdoing, they were asked instead to contribute, at personal cost, to a positive venture.” (p. 588) In contrast to the patriarchs who wandered from land to land, here, the Children of Israel build a national center, a permanent yet portable center. Wherever they travel to, the Tabernacle will accompany them and will define their national identity. In it, everyone, not just the leaders, can offer a sacrifice: “All will have equal access to make their offerings of atonement and gratitude. The shared practices in relation to God are a major step to the condition of equality under God and the Law that is God’s political ideal for humankind.” (p. 588-589)
Through a careful and delightful reading, Kass offers the readers new insights into a familiar story with a focus on political wisdom. He leads them from one chapter to another by providing them with preliminary questions and final synthesis. To facilitate the process of reading, a reading that is accessible even to those unfamiliar with Exodus, Kass opts for narrative mode. By retelling a well-known story, he reveals its value system through what is written in the text and through the connection between different narrative elements. He helps the readers to understand better the story by providing them with a knowledge acquired through the interpretative tradition. This knowledge enriches the text without making its reading heavy. Indeed, rather than to have supplementary comments at bottom of page, the author groups them (almost one hundred pages) at the end of the book. This methodological option does not shorten the book in any way. Is the reading too long and tedious? To answer this question, let me make this connection. For Kass, the purpose of the long journey in the desert is to help the Israelites get Egypt and its mentality out of their minds. I wonder if Kass’s lengthy book aims the same target: helping the readers, in a patient and progressive manner, to get over their “Egyptian” way of thinking; that is, the imposition of their own understanding on the text and the desire to separate the world of the story from their own world to make it foreign. If so, this book is a great success!