by Bruce Feiler
In the early 2000s, two books tracing the history of Jesus in the United States were published: Jesus in America by Richard W. Fox and American Jesus by Stephen Prothero. Both authors, distinguished scholars, trace Americans’ changing attitudes toward Jesus and show how his presence evolved, from his near absence during the Revolution to a more approachable, feminized savior in the nineteenth century, to a manly, aggressive redeemer in the early twentieth century, to a friendly superstar in the celebrity culture of the twenty-first century. “In a country divided by race, ethnicity, gender, class, and religion, Jesus functions as a common cultural coin,” wrote Prothero of Boston University. “Though by most accounts he never set foot in the United States, he has commanded more attention and mobilized more resources than George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., combined.”
My conclusions about Moses are somewhat different. Not only did Americans’ attitude toward him evolve, not only did he provide a common cultural language, and not only did he command attention and mobilize resources, Moses actually helped shape American history and values, helped define the American dream, and helped create America. Moses was more important to the Puritans, more meaningful in the Revolution, more impactful during the Civil War, and more inspiring to the immigrant rights, civil rights, and women’s rights movements of the last century than Jesus. Beyond that, Moses had more influence on American history than any other figure from the Bible or antiquity. Also, while certain intellectuals might have had a greater impact on particular periods of American life, no single thinker has had more sustained influence on American history over a longer period than Moses—and that includes Plato, Aristotle, Locke, Hobbes, Montesquieu, Marx, Darwin, Freud, and Einstein.
In addition, my own view of America was completely transformed by my travels. Like many people, I carried around in my head certain narrative frameworks through which I view the main story lines of American history. These involved the interplay between North and South, black and white, East and West, immigrant and native, urban and rural, rich and poor, left and right, and so on. Now I have a completely new frame—not only one I didn’t know before but one I’d never even heard before. The Exodus. Discovering how much the biblical narrative of the Israelites has colored the vision and informed the values of twenty generations of Americans and their leaders was like discovering a new front door to a house I’d lived in all my life. You can’t understand American history, I now believe, without understanding Moses. He is a looking glass into our soul.
But why?
The answer comes down to three themes. The first is the courage to escape oppression and seek the Promised Land. As the Protestant theologian Walter Brueggemann has written, Moses’ influence on Western thought stems from his role as the prophet who sought to evoke in Israel a commitment to improve the world. The prophet’s vocation, Brueggemann wrote, is “to keep alive the ministry of imagination, to keep on conjuring and proposing alternative futures to the single one the king wants to urge as the only thinkable one.” That is Moses’ gift and his legacy: He proposes an alternative reality to the one we face at any given moment. He suggests that there is something better than the mundane, the enslaved, the second-best, the compromised. He encourages people to be restless, and revolutionary. Brueggemann noted that a prophet does not ask if the dream can be implemented. As countless American visionaries have insisted, imagination must come before implementation. Perhaps Americans’ chief debt to Moses is his message that we should never settle for the status quo, and always aspire to what Thoreau termed the “true America.” In the words of W. E. B. Du Bois, “Not America, but what America might be—the Real America.” As Langston Hughes put it:
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!
Moses is the patron saint of “America will be.”
The second Mosaic theme is the tension between freedom and law. The earliest biographies of Moses, written in the first century C.E., downplay the prophet’s role as liberator and celebrate his vision as a lawgiver. Moses could have indulged his own freedom, Josephus said, and used it to his advantage. Instead, he extolled virtues—“justice, fortitude, temperance, and the universality of law”—that have become the foundation of civil society. The Pilgrims understood this balance long before the founders. While still on board the Mayflower, they “used their own liberty” to sign the Mayflower Compact, vowing to “covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic.” Liberty and order. Freedom and covenant. The words have reverberated through American history. From the Revolution to the Civil War to the civil rights movement, the great liberation struggles in the United States have involved overturning unjust laws to advance freedom, then sidestepping anarchy by quickly imposing new laws. Sometimes the new order impeded liberty, as happened with slavery and Jim Crow, but still the pattern persevered. And once more it paralleled—and in many cases was inspired by—the story of Moses, where liberty from Egypt was followed by the order of Sinai, where the freedom of Exodus was balanced by the covenant of the commandments. As Michael Walzer summed up the challenge facing the Israelites, the “crucial struggle” begins in the wilderness but continues in the Promised Land: “to create a free people and to live up to the terms of the covenant.” Few descriptions better encapsulate American history, even though this one was written about the Bible.
The final theme is the building of a society that welcomes the outsider and uplifts the downtrodden. The Moses story is infused with compassion. It opens with the pharaoh ruthlessly oppressing the Israelites with harsh labor, then issuing the order to kill all Israelite boys. The Israelites groan under the bondage and cry out, which produces the turning point in the Bible: God responds to their anguish. “Their cry for help from the bondage rose up to God,” says Exodus 2. “God heard their meaning…and remembered his covenant.” As God tells Moses in the next scene, “I have marked well the plight of my people in Egypt and have heeded their outcry…I am mindful of their suffering.” But the story goes on to say that it is not enough for God alone to be mindful of suffering. If humans are made in God’s image, they, too, must heed the outcry of those in pain. “You shall not oppress a stranger,” God tells his people in Exodus 23, “for you know the feelings of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt.”
The moral core of Exodus is built on remembering the oppression the Israelites suffered, then recalling the liberation God delivered as a result. As African American historian Eddie Glaude wrote, “The brutality of bondage and the euphoria of freedom are kept in ‘living memory’ to remind people whence they came, to serve as conceptual tools for problem-solving, and to combat injustice.” Thirty-six times the Five Books of Moses urge the Israelites to love the stranger, and the Israelites’ experience with oppression becomes the foundation for a host of Mosaic laws that mandate that God’s people care for the poor, tend the sick, comfort the grieving, and welcome the hurting into their arms. The Israelites’ lament at the start of Exodus, Walter Brueggemann wrote, is the “primal scream that permits the beginning of history,” for there is no history when someone cries and can’t be heard.
To be sure, the Exodus story and the notion of being God’s chosen people have been used over the years as fodder for American exceptionalism, which contributed to the country’s mistreatment of everyone from slaves to Native Americans to immigrants to gays. Anyone who thinks the Bible is exclusively a source for good in American life must confront the legacy of slaveholders quoting Moses. Also, the idea that Americans were somehow tapped like the ancient Israelites to spread freedom around the world played a role in some of America’s foreign-policy missteps over the years. Still, time and again, the greater pull of Exodus has been toward liberating those under duress. From John Winthrop to Harriet Beecher Stowe, from Lady Liberty to “I have a dream,” the arc of America has tilted toward the outsider. The Exodus has been so oft quoted in American rhetor
ic precisely because it fixed the country’s moral heart in the body of those on the perimeter of society.
And many of these key traits—especially the idea that the strength of a society comes from its ability to protect its entire population and provide everyone with a path out of pain into promise—have only become more true in contemporary America. In an age when more Americans leave their families and head out into the world alone, when more people are literate, itinerant, mobile, when greater numbers of people are touched by the isolation of divorce or the dislocation of financial strain, when some gripe that the concentration of power in Wall Street and Corporate America Street leave many Americans groaning under the yolk of modern pharaohs, when others complain that illegal immigrants and alternative lifestyles threaten the country’s moral foundation, the themes of Moses seem as relevant as ever. We are as much a nation of strangers today as at any time in our history, and more in need of the unifying call Moses offers to free the suffering, build a nurturing community, and befriend the stranger.
And sure enough, those cries are beginning to be heard. In nearly every interview I conducted, I asked, “Where are the Moseses of today?” Depending on the news, the political orientation, or the mood of the person I was speaking with, I heard every answer imaginable—preacher, politician, artist, activist, entrepreneur. Perhaps the most poignant answer came from Jonathan Sarna, the historian of American Judaism. “I think America still believes in the Moses story,” he said. “I think it’s ingrained into our soul. Americans don’t want to be selfish, or hateful. We want to do better. We want to be a community. And I think we know a lot about this figure. He will come out of nowhere, like Moses. He’ll remind us of the virtues we have forgotten, like Moses. He’ll save us, like Moses. But then he’ll fall short, like Moses, so in the end, we’ll still need another Moses to come after him.”
“DEBBIE’S TASTY BRISKET” was the highlight of the seder meal, and the potatoes, as always, reminded me of my mother’s. I even enjoyed a slice of Auntie Barbara’s Jell-O mold, and it occurred to me that it wouldn’t take much midrashic wizardry to link it to the Exodus. The red food coloring reminds us of the blood of oppression, and the chunks of canned pineapple of the straw bricks. Passover is like Thanksgiving in one regard: Most families have a favorite dish that would make traditionalists blanch.
After the meal, at my father-in-law’s urging, I asked everyone a question: “What does freedom mean to you?” Alan went first. In the 1980s, the Rottenbergs hosted an exchange student from China. “Every night, when I came home from work,” Alan said, “Danhai would stand behind me waiting for me to finish dinner so he could ask me questions. One day I had a little argument with my son. Well, maybe it was a big argument.” Everyone laughed. “And my son talked back to me. Danhai was visibly upset. ‘I’ve never seen a son talk back to a father before,’ he said. ‘Children in China don’t do that.’ Today, reading the hagadah, one of the comments I noticed is that freedom is the right to ask questions. For me, freedom is the ability to question authority.”
Around the table we went. Kyle, a sixteen-year-old, said, “When I think of freedom, I think of being able to do whatever you want, including murder somebody and not get in trouble. But then I realize there are laws that restrict you from doing that, which contradicts the fact that people say it’s a free country.”
Uncle Murray said: “I think freedom is difficult for us to discuss because the United States is still such a polarized society. The fact that the United States is still separated by economic disparity is something we need to work on.”
Freedom to challenge authority. The tension between freedom and law. The obligation to extend freedom to the stranger.
Finally, my mother-in-law, Debbie, spoke. “When you first asked the question, I was thinking that for me, freedom is the ability to go to sleep at night with the peace of mind that you and your family will be safe.” A native of small-town Rhode Island and a graduate of Mount Holyoke College, Debbie has devoted her life to her husband, her three children, and now her grandchildren. Though at first she was skeptical that a globe-traveling writer was right for her (even more globe-traveling) daughter, Debbie has warmed to me considerably. My wife says we’re a lot alike.
Debbie continued: “But then I was relating the question to Passover, and there’s a line in the seder that says, ‘Our ancestors were slaves but today we are free.’ There’s something about Passover that makes us want to remember that freedom is fragile, and that makes me want to treasure it even more.”
For the first time all night, silence settled over the table.
My daughters had reached the end of their night, and I took them upstairs to bed, leaving my wife to enjoy her family. After our bedtime routine, I sat in the darkness for a few minutes to ensure that one of them didn’t try out her new skill: vaulting out of the crib. Downstairs, the seder was reaching its conclusion.
I realized my own views of Moses had undergone a change. I was surprised at the start of my journey to discover how much Moses is downplayed in the Five Books. Fewer than 10 percent of chapters focus on his life, and the Bible does not describe his physical features, gives no clues about his dress, and provides only the briefest glimpse of his inner life. The hagadah gives him even less attention: It mentions Moses only once. The book Jews have read for centuries to celebrate the Israelites’ exodus from slavery barely acknowledges the man God chose to lead that liberation. Scholars have debated this absence for generations, and the best explanation I’ve heard is that rabbis did not want to risk elevating Moses so much that he threatened God. Whatever the reason, between the Bible and the hagadah, Moses emerges as a kind of invisible hero, subservient to his savior, disrespected by his followers, marginalized between the chosen people and their all-powerful God.
Ancient storytellers minimized Moses for the same reasons so many Americans have been attracted to him—and why he’s so relevant today. He’s not divine. He’s human. If anything, his identity issues seem very contemporary. He’s a man without a home. Despite growing up in the pharaoh’s house, he’s not exactly Egyptian; despite marrying a Midian woman and living in the desert, he never becomes a Midianite; despite leading his people for forty years, he never enters the Promised Land and thus never becomes a true Israelite. Also, he’s torn among families. Orphaned by his birth mother, he later abandons his adopted mother and then leaves the mother of his son to free a people he hardly knows. And though he’s known for winning showdowns with the pharaoh, with his followers, and with God, he is plagued by self-pity and self-doubt.
The tension between these personal struggles and Moses’ public feats is one of the things that most draws me to him. Moses is the ultimate outsider. You can feel the pain in his struggles even though the Bible does not articulate them. The man of strength brims with internal weakness. Yet he takes any feelings of alienation and converts them into a commitment to community. He transforms his weakness into a strength. Faced with pivotal choices, Moses is repeatedly governed by a concern for others. Given the choice, he chooses the public good. And his farewell message to his people encourages them to do the same. Choose life. He may not always display ideal character—he kills, he purges, he pouts. His struggles may be far grander than those of today. But I still see him as a powerful benchmark of self-sacrifice and community service.
And a stirring example for my children.
The years I worked on this book overlapped with the first years of my daughters’ lives, and because of that a moment in the Moses story took on special meaning. The moment comes in Exodus 12:26, on the eve of the tenth plague, just before Moses tells the Israelites how to conduct the first seder. Moses says, “And when your children ask you, ‘What do you mean by this rite?’ you shall say…” A similar exchange occurs twice more. “And when, in time to come, your child asks you, saying, ‘What does this mean?’ you shall say…” I began to wonder how I would answer that question. What will I tell my children about the meaning of Moses?
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nbsp; First, the power of story. Exodus opens with a memorable statement: “A new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph.” The story begins with forgetting. The pharaoh does not remember how a son of Israel saved Egypt from famine. The rest of the Five Books of Moses becomes an antidote to this state of forgetfulness. God hears the groaning of Israel and “remembers his covenant” (Exod. 2:24). Moses leads the Israelites from Egypt and urges them to “remember this day” (Exod. 13:3). The Israelites are ordered to “remember the Sabbath day” (Exod. 20:8) and to observe Passover as a “day of remembrance” (Exod. 12:14). Moses’ goal is to build a counter-Egypt. He must construct a society that offers an alternative to ignorance and unknowingness. He must devise a community that remembers.
Moses’ success in this regard may be his most underappreciated accomplishment: The Five Books of Moses are a memory device. They are a telling, designed to create a tradition of retelling, intended to mold a nation of retellers. In slavery, the Israelites made bricks; in freedom, they make stories. As Jonathan Sacks put it, “By telling the Israelites to become a nation of educators, Moses turned a group of slaves into a people of eternity.” So my first message to my daughters: Remember. Keep the story, as Moses says in Deuteronomy 30, “in your mouth and in your heart.”
Second, the story is a narrative of hope. “This year we are slaves, but next year…” History is not set in stone. It is not an immovable pyramid. It can be remade. The pyramid can be flipped. When you despair, when you hurt, when you fear—and especially when you encounter those feelings in others—remember the slaves who first groaned under bondage. In America, the Pilgrims, the founders, the enslaved, and the segregated, all read the Israelites’ story and believed that they, too, might be free. You should read the Israelites’ story, too, and remember this lesson: There is a moral dimension to the universe. Right can prevail over might; justice can triumph over evil. As Michael Walzer wrote, “Anger and hope, not resignation, are the appropriate responses to the Egyptian house of bondage.” You should read the story of Moses and remember to flip a few pyramids yourselves along the way. And as long as it’s not your parents (remember that fifth commandment!), you should question authority. Overturn injustice. Befriend the stranger, for you, yourselves, were once strangers in a land with no hope.
