On Confusing One’s Own Views with the Bible’s

In “The People-Forming Passover,” his essay on chapters 12 and 13 of Exodus, Leon Kass subjects the biblical account of the first Passover to a searching examination in order to discover and expound the enduring wisdom underlying the familiar story. As a result, and not surprisingly, he presents us with a number of fine and timely insights, crisply and effectively expressed.

For example: “In framing the actual exodus by these first Israelite laws,” Kass writes, “the Torah clearly hints that the essence of the story lies not in mere (political) liberation from bondage but in liberation for a (more than political) way of life in relation to the Liberator.” In a time in which the political represents the most important dimension that many people—certainly including many biblical scholars—can imagine, it is refreshing to read the words of someone perceptive and courageous enough to point out the deeper meaning of the paschal narrative.

Or, to provide another example, when Kass observes that “The first national laws . . . give [the Israelites] and us a foretaste of what should replace Egypt in their souls. Even while still in Egypt, they are being primed for Sinai,” he rightly glosses his term “Liberator” to note that God is also a Commander: true freedom, in the biblical and classical Jewish vision, is not license or even responsible self-determination but instead entails a life of divine service. And so, when as a result of the exodus, the manumitted slaves can now exercise choice, “What they eventually will be invited to choose, however, will not be ‘freedom’ but something else: righteousness and holiness, gained through willing obedience.” Here, too, the message, as countercultural as it is exegetically correct, flies in the face of the thinking of a broad swath of today’s philosophical, jurisprudential, and, yes, religious thought.