What We Do

Congregational Project
2008

From Slavery to Freedom:
Jewish and Christian Readings
of the Exodus

On Thursday, February 7, 2008 at Woodbrook Baptist Church, a boisterous gathering of 125 people began an exploration of the exodus story and how the transforma-tional power of that story lives in different ways in different religious communities.

Introduction

Following a welcome by ICJS Executive Director Dr. Christopher M. Leighton, Associate Director and Roman Catholic Scholar Dr. Rosann M. Catalano outlined the schedule for this year's Congregational Project:

   Session #1: how the exodus narrative was used in the canon of Scripture (Dr. Catalano)
   Session #2: the narrative as it functions within the Jewish tradition, particularly in the Passover Haggadah (Rabbi Joel H. Zaiman, ICJS Jewish Scholar)
   Session #3: the narrative as it functions within the classical Christian tradition (Dr. Leighton)
   Session #4: how the narrative lives in and shapes the African American Christian experience (The Rev. Grady Yeargin, Pastor of The City Temple of Baltimore Baptist Church).

Three sets of "background" questions form the backdrop for this year's Congregational Project:

• To whom does the exodus story belong?
• What does it mean to say that Jews, white Christians, and African American Christians "share" this sacred story?
• If the story does indeed "belong" to each and to all of us, how does it "belong"? In
  the same way? In different ways?
• What light does the exodus story shed on the terms "redemption," "liberation," "deliverance," "freedom," and "salvation"?
• Are these terms interchangeable?
• How do they function in the religious imaginations of Jews and Christians?
• What of the terms "slavery" and "sin"? Are they synonymous?
• How do our respective communities under-stand them?
• How do each of our communities relate them to the exodus narrative?

Session #1: An Inter-canonical Conversation

Text Study #1: Exodus 1:1-14

Congregational Project participants seated at small tables were asked to read the text of Exodus 1:1-14 in their groups and to discuss the question: How do you account for the change of fortune of the Israelites in Egypt? The unanimous answer to that question was fear. Because of Joseph, the Israelites had previously enjoyed political favor and were accepted as useful aliens in the land of Egypt. Although they hadn't done anything wrong, and they hadn't sinned, the new king "who did not know Joseph" was afraid of them and put them in bondage. Thus God's deliverance of the Israel-ites out of Egypt was based on a political reality.

Text Study #2: Exodus 14:1-31

After quickly summarizing the events of the first thirteen chapters of the book of Exodus, Dr. Catalano directed closer attention to the evening's second text -- Exodus 14:1-31.

Pharaoh decides that letting the Israelites go was a mistake. He gathers a mighty force to pursue them and overtakes them camped by the sea. In fear the people cry out to the LORD. God tells Moses what to do, and the Israelites are able to pass through the sea on dry ground. Pharaoh's mighty army follows them; but when Moses stretches out his hand, again at God's direction, the waters return and all the Egyptians are drowned in the sea.

Dr. Catalano zeroed in on verses 30 and 31, which she identified as "a hugely problematic text": "Thus the LORD saved Israel that day from the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. Israel saw the great work that the LORD did against the Egyptians. So the people feared the LORD and believed in the LORD and in his servant Moses." Dr. Catalano related the gist of a Jewish midrash (a story that fills in the gaps in a biblical text) that picks up where verse 31 leaves off. According to the midrash, the angels in heaven are elated at Israel's deliverance from the Egyptians, and they sing a song of praise to the LORD. But God rejects their song because the Egyptians who drowned were also God's children. Embedded in the story of freedom is a story of someone else's demise.

Text Study #3: Deuteronomy 26:5-10

The exodus experience was so powerfully fixed in the Israelite imagination that the way in which the story was told provided a framework for Israel's master narrative -- the narrative of Israel's history with God. This framework is evident in Deuteronomy 26:5-10. These verses are a retelling of Exodus 14, a condensation of the story into
a credo that could be memorized and passed on from generation to generation. This text in Deuteronomy be-came the paradigm for the way in which every story of deliverance by the LORD was told:

• The people, through no fault of their own, are in distress and are powerless to save themselves.
• They cry out to the LORD.
• The LORD hears their cry and sees their affliction.
• The LORD takes them out of their affliction and brings them to a safe place.
• The people thank and praise the LORD.

Participants were then asked to study this text and an-swer the following question: In this recitation of the "historical credo" which preserves the exodus out of Egypt, what do you consider to be the decisive moment of deliverance? This question prompted an intriguing variety of answers. The decisive moment of deliverance was:

• when God heard
• when the Israelites cried out (God's goodness was not available until they cried out)
• when the LORD brought the people to the prom-ised land
• when the people thank God for their deliverance (the people do something for the LORD, who had done so much for them)
• before the beginning of time.

This last answer sparked a lot of audience reaction and a brief exchange between Drs. Catalano and Leighton concerning God's omnipotence. The former objected to "omnis" as being Greek rather than biblical; the latter de-scribed himself as "an ‘omni’ kind of guy." The story of the exodus does have an underlying sense of God's omnipotence and of being inherent in the process of creation (Dr. Leighton), but the story was written after the fact by the people who were delivered (Dr. Cata-lano).

Summary Discussion

Israel's faith is always dialogical. God does not want God's people to be in affliction. When people cry out to God, God hears and sees and takes them out of their affliction. It is not enough, however, to simply be taken out; the people must also be taken in -- in to a place in which they can thrive and serve the LORD. When they arrive in that place, they praise and thank God for their deliverance.

It was suggested that the decisive moment of deliver-ance was in fact the whole story, that no part of the story could be removed, and that we have to remember the story. This suggestion led to a discussion of deliv-erance as a partnership, a cooperative effort. The ones to be delivered have an essential part to play in that deliverance: They must cry out to the LORD before the LORD can act. Then they have an obligation to remem-ber and to give thanks and praise to God. The problem with the exodus story, though, is that it contains no timeline regarding when God will act.

The inevitable question was asked: What about the Shoah? What happens when we find ourselves in histor-ical circumstances in which the narrative of deliverance doesn't seem to apply? There is no definitive answer to these questions. There are answers that do not satisfy fully: The paradigm works except when it doesn't. Some-times it is only the history that is redemptive.

Deliverance may be a cooperative effort, but there can-not be any confusion of roles. Ultimately God decides what deliverance is, and we must see deliverance through God's eyes and not our own. We cannot tell God how to be God.

God is always present but may not seem to act. There is a story that at Auschwitz God was put on trial and was found guilty. After the verdict was rendered, those who had found God guilty formed a minyan and said their prayers. They did their part and waited in the expecta-tion that God would do God's part. The narrative of deliverance that shapes our tradition is a narrative of hope: Sometimes people die, but that is never the end of the story.

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