January 15, 2021
Reading Exodus with Leon Kass: What Is Egypt?
By Leon R. KassThis week, we look at the religious, political, and cultural matrix out of which Israel emerges, and the human alternative against which Israel will be defined.
Once a week for the next few months, Mosaic will be publishing brief excerpts of Leon R. Kass’s new book on Exodus, Founding God’s Nation. Curious about one of the foundational texts of the Jewish tradition? Read along with us. To see earlier excerpts, go here.
This week, Jewish communities all over the world begin their study of Exodus 6:2-9:35, a portion of the text known by its first significant Hebrew word, “Va’eira.” Moses and Aaron have returned to Egypt, and God’s deliverance of the Israelites is underway.
In chapter six of Founding God’s Nation, from which the following excerpt is drawn, Kass asks two major questions about political founding, “How do the Children of Israel, for now an oppressed multitude of slaves, become a free, self-governing people? And how does Moses, for now a stranger in a strange land, come to be their leader and founder? Both transformations require contact with and separation from Egypt, the world’s premier civilization.” In this week’s selection, we bring you Kass’s summary of the Egyptian way of life.