To be a Jew, then, is to be born of those two escapes: into the desert and into the Book. Exile and text created us far more than genealogical descent from Abraham or the high priests, and throughout our history we have always turned back to these two concepts for strength, inspiration, and rebirth. There is no convincing archaeological evidence for the flight from Egypt. Evidence that the Hebrews were even enslaved in Egypt is scarce. But the Exodus story doesn't need to be true to serve its purpose. Whether divinely inspired or written by a series of editors over hundreds of years, the Torah narrative has its normative function, summed up succinctly by my bar mitzvah portion: you owe a debt to the God who sent you wandering, who made you into a people, who promises you won't wander forever. [1]
Charles London points out early in Far From Zion: In Search of a Global Jewish Community that not only Jews left Egypt with Moses: "A mixed multitude also went up with them" (Exodus 12:38). London puts the population in exile, at more than a million souls, all transformed, Jews and the mixed multitudes that joined them, into one nation with the receiving of the Torah.
Cited Reference
1. London, Charles. Far From Zion: In Search of a Global Jewish Community. New York: Harper Collins, 2009, p. 8.
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