by Bruce Feiler
This year, as we arrived on our annual pilgrimage, I was also thinking about the connections between Passover and the United States. Is Moses still relevant in America today? In an age when secularism, globalism, and pluralism threaten to undermine the Bible’s influence, does the three-thousand-year-old story from the ancient Near East still have the ability to shape public debate? Having starred over the centuries in oral history, sacred canon, printed word, novel, stage, and film, could Moses be reinvented in the twenty-first century as a creature of shock jocks, the blogo-sphere, and YouTube?
At first glance, Moses might seem to be a missing person in contemporary America. In part, that’s because of the country’s rapidly changing face of religion. After a loosening of immigration laws in the 1960s, the percentage of foreign-born Americans more than doubled in the next four decades to 10 percent. The arrivals brought with them a host of faiths little known in the country, including Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sikhism, along with fresh waves of Pentecostal Christians and traditional Catholics. Three million Americans are Muslim today; twice that are said to be Buddhist. If the early-American centuries were Protestant and the last one Judeo-Christian, the new century will be even more hyphenated—at least among those who still cling to God. A tenth of Americans define themselves as atheist or agnostic.
As America’s religious identity becomes more and more diffused, the Bible’s role in the country’s self-perception becomes increasingly imperiled. Almost all Americans say they believe in God, 93 percent of American homes have at least one Bible, and a third of the country believes the Bible is literally true. But few know more than its basic outlines. Half of Americans can’t name the first book of the Bible, and only 20 percent can name a single prophet. Gallup calls the United States “a nation of biblical illiterates.” But with Moses, something singular seems to have happened. The key themes of his story have continued to give shape and meaning to countless Americans who may know next to nothing about the root text in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy (um, books two through five).
This trend is particularly true among outsiders. Betty Friedan in her leadership of the feminist movement was compared to Moses. Harvey Milk, the first openly gay city supervisor of San Francisco, was called the Moses of his people. In 1987, Richard “Cheech” Marin made a film, Born in East L.A., likening Latino immigration to the Exodus. Microsoft founder Bill Gates’s showdown with IBM was compared to Moses’ showdown with the pharaoh; then Gates became the pharaoh, and Steve Jobs of Apple assumed the role of Moses.
The bulk of these comparisons were mere slogans, coined by clever headline writers or savvy marketers. But they resonated long after the Bible began to recede in the nation’s memory, because they tapped into the larger American story: Oppression is merely temporary; mighty authoritarian figures can be toppled; and all people can be set free to achieve their promise. Even if the analogies bore little connection to the Bible, they invoked the memory of successive American liberations—from 1776 to the Civil War to civil rights. If outsiders want to legitimize their place in America, they have to make their cause fit the most American of templates—the Exodus.
In the presidency, the use of Mosaic language did not ebb with the decline of Scripture. In The Making of the President, 1964, Theodore White compared Lyndon Johnson’s victory to the close of the Moses story. “It was as if Kennedy, a younger Moses, had led an elder Joshua to the height of Mount Nebo and there shown him the promised land which he himself would never enter but which Joshua would make his own.” Not to be overshadowed, Johnson stood up at his inauguration and promptly claimed the Moses role for himself. “The American covenant called on us to help show the way for the liberation of man,” he said. “And that today is our goal.”
Three decades later, Bill Clinton, accepting the Democratic nomination in 1992, announced a “New Covenant, a solemn agreement between the people and their government—based not simply on what each of us can take but on what all of us must give to our nation.” He added, “Our eyes have not yet seen, nor our ears heard, nor our minds imagined what we can build.” Again, the uncredited reference comes from Moses’ farewell speech on Nebo, the same passage quoted by Ronald Reagan at the Statue of Liberty, Martin Luther King at the Mason Temple, and John Winthrop on the Arbella. Moses was the original “bridge to the twenty-first century.”
Republicans also claimed the legacy of Moses. Ronald Reagan was called the Moses of conservatism. At a reception following the inauguration of George W. Bush in 2001, a senator introduced the president as a leader who followed in the footsteps of Joshua. The president’s pastor agreed, comparing Bush to “Moses who just crossed the river, leading his people to the mountain and from there to the Promised Land.” He added, “I think you have brought healing and hope to the young, to the marginalized, to the dispossessed. And that’s what Moses did. He was chosen by God, as you have been chosen by God.” The rhetoric got so bloated that the Independent in London nicknamed the new president “George M. Bush (M for Moses).” Are comparisons to Moses a precondition of White House residency?
A FEW WEEKS before Passover, I got a call from my father. “The president of the United States mispronounced your name on national television last night,” he reported. President George W. Bush, at the end of an interview with C-SPAN, had been asked what books he had been reading. “Well, I just finished a book called Abraham by a guy named Feiler,” he said, pronouncing my name “Feeler” instead of “Filer.” “And it’s a really interesting book that studies the prophet Abraham from the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim perspective.” The president went on to give a generous description of the book and express hope that Abraham could promote reconciliation. Not long afterward, I received a telephone call: Could I appear at the White House ten days later to meet the president?
I hadn’t exactly been a supporter of President Bush, but the opportunity to engage him one-on-one in the White House seemed like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. So I pressed my suit, shined my shoes, and, with my wife and parents in tow, made the overnight trek to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. And when I woke that morning to find that my collar was lacking a stay, I took a Q-tip, circumcised it with a nail clipper, and inserted it into my collar. That’s right: I wore a Q-tip into the Oval Office.
We arrived at the Northwest Appointment Gate at 8:45 A.M. An extremely charming aide led us past “Pebble Beach,” where the networks keep their outdoor cameras, through the front door of the West Wing, into what she described as a “holding room.” It turned out to be the Cabinet Room. The familiar table filled most of the space, and through the windows you could see the Rose Garden. A Charles Willson Peale portrait of George Washington hung on one wall, with the first president posed as Napoléon; opposite was a marble bust of Washington looking like Caesar. There was a painting of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, a portrait of Eisenhower, and, oddly, I thought, the bust of a non-president, Benjamin Franklin. Each leather chair at the table had a brass plate on the back bearing the title of the person who sat there, including THE PRESIDENT.
At about 9:50, we were moved into a dark foyer, then through the open door into the Oval Office. My first impression was how light the room was, and how heavy the air. Part of this is an architectural trick. I renovated an apartment a few years ago, and my architect talked about the power of making small anterooms darker, so that the large room you enter has even more impact. That’s exactly what happens with the Oval Office. You first pass through a warren of windowless rooms, then burst into the Oval Office, which has huge windows, an illuminated ceiling, and stage lighting. Reagan communications guru Mike Deaver had relit the room, and the effect on your irises, if nothing else, is intense. Russian president Vladimir Putin, upon entering, is said to have uttered, “Oh, my God.”
The other source of intensity, of course, is the person entering the room. You bring a lot of emotion with you—the anxiety, the nervous twisting of hands, the sense of history. And I wasn’t coming to make a ma
jor decision, or negotiate a bill, or apply for a Supreme Court judgeship. I can only imagine the emotion some visitors feel.
President Bush was standing on the light-colored rug designed by his wife in front of the desk used by FDR and JFK. Wearing a blue suit, a red tie, and cowboy boots, he was very shouldery and formal. He welcomed us to the Oval Office. Friends who had met him led me to expect joking, maybe even towel snapping. Instead, the first words out of his mouth were serious: “You’re entering the Oval Office at an important time in our history,” he said. “This is where we make history, and our actions will be judged by history.” He went on to defend his strategy in Iraq. Afterward we shook hands, and the president repeated some nice words about my work. Then I decided to inquire about his faith. I asked if he had a Bible in the Oval Office.
“Of course I have a Bible here,” he said, and pointed to the table behind his desk, where a green leather-bound Bible sat in front of his family photographs. It was closer to his chair than the telephone. “But I read it only in the private residence,” he said.
“Are there any specific verses that speak to you?”
“I’m strengthened by people who pray for me,” he said, “not by specific verses. You have to be the president of all the people. This is not a Christian country. The strength of our country is that we can all worship freely—not like the Islamic extremists who say we must believe in their God. A sinner like me, I don’t presume to tell other people they must believe in God. I’m not that vain.”
What followed was a twenty-minute conversation about church, state, and the role of religion in the presidency. Bush stressed that a president’s faith should be private and Americans should not vote for a candidate just because he wears his faith on his sleeve. He said he had been criticized for mentioning in a Republican debate in 2000 that his favorite philosopher was Christ. “What was I supposed to say, Hobbes or Locke?” he quipped.
He spoke to my wife for a few minutes, and the time was approaching to take photographs. I told the president that I had spent the last year or so looking at the role of Moses in American history, that Moses had played a role with many presidents, from George Washington on. Could President Bush think of any moments where Moses had inspired him?
The president thought for a second. “Only one,” he said. At his second inaugural as governor of Texas, Pastor Mark Craig gave a sermon saying that America was starved for honest leaders. “He told the story of Moses, asked by God to lead his people to a land of milk and honey,” Bush recalled. “Moses had a lot of reasons to resist, and his reaction was, ‘Sorry, God, I’m busy. I’ve got a family. I’ve got a life. Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt? The people won’t believe me. I’m not a very good speaker.’ Pastor Craig noted that it’s not always convenient for leaders to step forward. ‘Even Moses had doubts.’”
That night, the president said, his mother, Barbara, approached him. “He’s speaking about you,” she said. The occasion was a turning point in his decision to run for president.
When George Washington refused to be sworn in as president until a Bible was summoned from the Masonic lodge, he created an indelible partnership between the pinnacle of American power and the embodiment of Israelite religion. Forty-two presidents later, though many things about the presidency have changed, that partnership has not. One reason may be the kinship of history. Every room I entered in the White House featured a depiction of George Washington. The past is omnipresent here, as is the future. Nearly every sentence out of President Bush’s mouth related to how someone before him had conducted himself, or someone later would judge his actions. He was steeped in the weight of time. Given that, it’s no wonder that many presidents in moments of crisis have turned to the Bible. How many documents have withstood the crush of so much time?
But beyond that, the idea that one biblical story has inspired such radically different leaders as George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, suggests that the story has transcended time and political party to become a leitmotif of the American presidency. One reason may be the importance of leadership to Moses’ life. As political scientist Aaron Wildavsky wrote in Moses as Political Leader, the Five Books of Moses are a “primer on leadership.” Moses can teach so much, Wildavsky suggests, because “far from being beyond us, [he] was full of human faults, from passivity to impatience to idolatry.” He doubts his own abilities, faces rebellions from his people, and still manages to persuade them to follow him through the wilderness even as he fails to achieve his dream. “Difficulty and disappointment punctuate Moses’ entire career,” Wildavsky observed. “At his most successful, Moses teaches us that we can do without him.”
Moses embodies both passion and frustration, success and failure, and that may be why he still haunts the halls of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. I certainly saw a mixture of determination and resignation in the eyes of President Bush that morning, and a quick catalogue of the presidents linked with Moses suggests a similar balance of vision achieved and promise deferred. Moses is an emblem of the American presidency precisely because he captures both the grandeur of leading a free people and the anguish of being alone at the top of the mountain.
IN WASHINGTON, MOSES doesn’t just live in the White House. His statue stands in the Library of Congress. His tablets are embedded in the floor of the National Archives. And his face appears in the House chamber, along with that of Hammurabi, Maimonides, and Napoléon, in a tribute to twenty-three figures who inspired American law. Eleven of the bas-reliefs face left, and eleven face right; they all look toward Moses, who hangs in the middle, the only one shown full-figured.
Perhaps the most surprising Mosaic representations in the capital are the six in the nation’s highest court. Moses is practically the mascot of the U.S. Supreme Court. He appears at the center of the east pediment, flanked by Solon of Athens and Confucius of China in a tribute to the legal traditions of other civilizations. He appears in the gallery of statues that leads into the court, as well as the south frieze in the chamber. The Ten Commandments are displayed on the bronze gates leading into the courtroom as well as on the interior panels of the chamber doors.
Are these depictions an anachronism, or do they still speak in America today?
To answer that question I spoke to two of the most vocal combatants in church-state cases before the Supreme Court—Rabbi David Saperstein of Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism and Jay Sekulow of Pat Robertson’s American Center for Law and Justice. Saperstein, who descends from a long line of rabbis, has been called the “quintessential religious lobbyist.” Sekulow, who was born a Jew but converted to Christianity, has been deemed “the Almighty’s Attorney-at-Law.” Both men presented briefs in the two Ten Commandments cases that appeared before the Court in 2005. The first reviewed whether a granite Ten Commandments on the grounds of the Texas Capitol violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment; the second examined whether government-sponsored displays of the Ten Commandments in Kentucky courtrooms violated the same clause.
East pediment of the Supreme Court of the United States, with Moses seated in the center, holding the tablets of the law. (Courtesy of The Supreme Court of the United States)
Saperstein was against displaying the commandments because he sees them as “unambiguously religious.” Unlike “God Bless America” or “In God We Trust,” both of which are part of the “background sounds of American life,” the Decalogue promotes specific religious traditions. Sekulow argued that displaying the Commandments does not endorse one faith but honors their “extraordinary influence” on American law. The Ten Commandments are like other expressions of America’s cultural heritage, including Thanksgiving and “one nation under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance.
In the Texas case, the Court agreed with Sekulow, ruling that the commandments were donated by a civic group and did have the secular purpose of reducing juvenile delinquency, while in Kentucky,
the Court found the displays had no such purpose and had to be removed. In yet another cultural civil war, Moses had somehow found a way to survive. When he is aligned with America’s secular tradition, he can stand on public ground. When he assumes the role of religious prophet, he must remain on private property.
“There are two different narratives in America,” David Saperstein explained. “The Enlightenment and the religious. ‘I think therefore I am’ versus ‘In the beginning was God.’ And there was no day that Western civilization went to the polls and said, ‘That’s it for the God-oriented world. We’re going with the rationalist world.’ We’re an amalgam of all these things.”
“So where is the balance of power today?”
“I think it’s a dead heat. I think the American people believe in the Ten Commandments and don’t like the idea that the government can say, ‘Don’t post them in some place.’ But I think the American people don’t like the idea of government imposing religious messages and values.” In 1776, I mentioned, America was clearly a biblical nation. The same could be said of 1865, and probably even 1932. “Is America a biblical nation today?”
“Ninety-six percent of Americans say they believe in God,” Rabbi Saperstein said. “Eighty-five percent say that religious values are important in their lives. People cherish the Bible, but I think there is a comfort level with functionally separating government and religion. So it is a biblical nation in terms of amorphous values that people trace back to the Bible, but the idea that government should somehow impose the Bible on others is becoming increasingly troublesome for Americans.”
Jay Sekulow agreed. “I think we’re a religious nation,” he said. “I think our institutions presuppose the existence of a supreme being. But are we a biblical nation? I think that’s a harder question right now, because I think we’ve moved away from involving the Bible in government. The Bible is still present in America, but it’s muted.”
