TIKUN OLAM on Shavuot Erev Shavuot 5771 / 2011 The New Israel Fund

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The excerpt from Binyamin Shvili’s poem is taken from his volume of poetry A Boy Flying a Kite in the Seventeenth Century (Eichut Press; in Hebrew).

Further details about study events can be found on the Fund’s website:

w w w . n i f . o r g . i l

Editor: Tzachi Mezuman | Translated from the Hebrew by Sara Friedman | Translation Editor: Tal Porat

The heavens, what do they say, We demand repair, the earth, What does it say, the Garden of Eden, what does it say, Desert fields water lakes rivers springs day night sun moon Stars thunderclouds clouds of glory wind lightning dew rain Trees vine fig pomegranate date apple ear of wheat ear of barley ears of other grains vegetables in the field grasses rooster hen […]What do they sayWhat do they sayWe demand repair - Binyamin Shvili

In Binyamin Shvili’s poem, the entire world seeks repair. Shvili thereby follows Midrash “Perek Shira” (=a midrash on Nature), yet unlike the ancient source, he attributes to all creatures a wish: the desire for a better future. This aspiration is based on the notion that Creation in its entirety is endowed with that quintessentially human yearning for a change for the better. The festival of Shavuot is the perfect time to engage with this idea of world repair – tikkun olam. The custom of tikkun – all-night study session – on Shavuot has recently emerged from the confines of synagogues and beit midrash, spreading to all walks of Israeli society. Observant Israelis affiliated with different religious streams, secular Israelis, and people who just plain enjoy intellectual stimulation – all gather for one night of study and thought, each according to his or her own preferences. That same aspiration for repair is at the core of the New Israel Fund’s recent enterprise, called “Take One: Tikkun”, and the occasion of this inaugural booklet. Already in its first year, hundreds are expected to take part in the study activities sponsored by NIF, at over 35 congregations and study centers throughout the country.The New Israel Fund is committed to the advancement of pluralism and tolerance in Judaism, and for the past thirty years has been supporting organizations of all denominations that work toward developing and enhancing a pluralistic Jewish identity. NIF

supports initiatives of secular and Orthodox organizations as well as of the Masorti and Reform movements who work to promote this goal. NIF seeks to promote a discourse of tolerance in Israel, and supports many organizations that advance social justice.

This booklet is worthy of NIF’s activities and of our outlook. We present here a variety of voices from different spiritual and intellectual worlds, each one, in its own way, touching upon the materials from which the Festival has been molded throughout Jewish history: concern for the stranger, the convert, and the Other, in the spirit of the Book of Ruth; social aspects of the Ten Commandments; the Giving of the Law at Sinai, marking a commitment to the Torah; and

the modern quest for locating secular meaning in a religious holiday.

The pieces included here span a wide spectrum of genres, yet the writers all have one thing in common – they are willing to publish their work in proximity to the works of people holding completely different views; this is quite a feat in our society. We think that such excellent neighbors are reason enough to be joyful on this Festival.

Happy Shavuot,

Tzachi Mezuman

The tikkun (all-night study session) that is customarily held on Shavuot is usually a celebration of intellect and emotion alike, but it is also an opportunity to sit on a chair, all night long. While the spirit takes pleasure in the Torah, one’s backside is wedged into a plastic Keter chair. Visitors dropping in on Judaism on Shavuot eve are struck by the impression that this is a religion consisting wholly of inspiring texts which are pored over in profound detail, while sitting in chairs. I think, however, that Judaism urges us to walk –not to sit. Judaism is a religion of texts designed to impel us to get up, walk, argue and fight. We are called “Israel” because we are a fighting people: “Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him into the break of dawn.

“Study is Greater, for it Leads to Action”(Kiddushin 40b)

A N AT H O F F M A N

When he saw that he had not prevailed against him, he wrenched Jacob’s hip at its socket, so that the socket of his hip was strained as he wrestled with him” (Gen. 32: 25-26; JPS trans.).An entire nation is named after a sweaty, panting tussle throughout one long night, on the bank of the Jordan river. Wrestling is not a sitting-down sport. It requires intensive physical contact of skin on skin, rolling on the ground, grabbing your partner basically getting down and dirty. What are we struggling for? For tikkun olam – repairing the world. Judaism demands courage to face reality without shutting our eyes. “One must always pray in a house with windows” (Berakhot 31a). Judaism requires that we act, get up and repair unbearable reality.

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“Each of you proclaimed a release to his countrymen”:

Fighting Slavery in the Covenant at SinaiH A N N A H K E H A T

On the festival of Shavuot, we celebrate the giving of the Law, the high point of the Exodus from Egypt, as made manifest at Mt. Sinai. Our sages expressed this idea symbolically by the four cups of wine at the Passover seder corresponding to the four different words for “redemption” in the biblical account. The last of these words relates to the giving of the Law, and to our becoming God’s chosen people.

Whence do we learn about the four cups? R. Yohanan said in the name of R. Benaya: “To correspond to four ‘redemptions’ [Ex. 6], ‘Say therefore, to the Israelite people: I am the Lord. I will free you […] And I will take you to be My people.” “Free,” “deliver,” “redeem,” “take”.” (Palestinian Talmud, Tr. Pesahim, ch. 1, hal. a).

The above expressions are found in the pronouncement of redemption:

Say, therefore, to the Israelite people: I am the Lord. I will free you from the labors of the Egyptians and deliver you from their bondage. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and through extraordinary chastisements. And I will take you to be My people, and I will be your God. (Ex. 6: 5-7; JPS trans.)

The expression “I will take you” refers to God’s taking the people to be His chosen nation. This is concretized by the imparting of the Law at Mt. Sinai, as God informs Moses when he sends him to announce the upcoming event at Mt. Sinai:

Thus shall you say to the house of Jacob and declare to the children of Israel: You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to Me. Now then, if you will obey Me faithfully and keep My covenant, you shall be My treasured possession among all the peoples. Indeed, all the earth is Mine, but you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. (Ex. 19: 3-6)

This is a sort of package deal: the redemption from Egypt is contingent upon the commitment to become God’s nation. What makes this nation special cannot be summed up in the belief in one God; rather, it includes too the commitment to follow in God’s ways. Just as He showed compassion and delivered us from bondage, we too are committed to redeem the oppressed and those who live in bondage. This notion is given very concrete expression in the fourth commandment - the Sabbath: one of the reasons given there for the commandment is so that slaves can enjoy a day of rest: “so that your male and female slave may rest as you do”:

Observe the sabbath day and keep it holy, as the Lord your God has commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your ox or your ass, or any of your cattle, or the stranger in your settlements, so that your male and female slave may rest as you do. Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt and the Lord your God freed you from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the sabbath day. (Deut. 5: 11-14)

The master has no need of others to be awarded a day of rest; he can rest whenever he likes. The slaves however need the Sabbath law to protect them and give them the right, as opposed to the privilege, to rest too. These verses also teach us that the purpose of our sojourn in Egypt was to instruct us how to treat slaves. In other laws dealing with slaves, God reiterates the lesson of our bondage in Egypt:

When you set him free, do not let him go empty-handed: Furnish him out of the flock, threshing floor, and vat, with which the Lord your God has blessed you. Bear in mind that you were slaves in the land of Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you; therefore I enjoin this commandment upon you today. (Det. 15: 13-15)

Moreover, the Torah implies that we were In Egypt as strangers and aliens so as to learn how to treat the stranger in our midst. The Bible repeats the commandment to love the stranger and refrain from wronging him no less than 36 times: “You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the feelings of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt” (Ex. 23: 9). Likewise, the following injunction is reiterated time and again:

“When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not wrong him. The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I the Lord am your God” (Lev. 19: 33-34).

According to these verses, the purpose of the exile in Egypt was to prepare us for being a better people, to heighten our sensitivity to minorities and the oppressed: “but you the Lord took and brought out of Egypt, that iron blast furnace, to be His very own people, as is now

the case” (Deut. 4: 20). It is not surprising to find that this is also the first commandment following the giving of the Law at Mt. Sinai. In the weekly portion of Mishpatim (=rules), we find many commandments and laws that constitute a detailed breakdown of the more general Ten Commandments. Instead of beginning with the laws relating to belief in one God – that is, to the first Commandment, “I am the Lord your God” – God chose to begin with the laws relating to a Hebrew slave: “When you acquire a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years; in the seventh year he shall go free, without payment” (Ex. 21: 2). This was the first law that Moses was bidden to declare to the people, for finally the Hebrews could realize their redemption from Egypt. A slave who chose not to be freed was symbolically punished for waiving his liberty, by having his ear pierced. The sages commented on this:

Why was the ear singled out7 from all the other limbs of the body? The Holy One, blessed be He, said: This ear, which heard my Voice on Mount Sinai when I proclaimed, For unto me the children of Israel are servants, they are my servants,8 and not servants of servants, and yet this [man] went and acquired a master for himself9 — let it be bored! (Kiddushin 22:b, Soncino trans.)

The single being we are permitted to be subservient to is the transcendental God. Our commitment is the covenant between man and God, and between man and his inner truth. The covenant with God empowers the individual to engage in independent thinking and to enjoy personal autonomy, without being in bondage to any other human being: “Fear no man, for judgment is God’s,” (Deut. 1: 17).Upon receiving the tablets of the Law at Sinai we are told: “The tablets were God’s work, and the writing was God’s writing, incised upon the tablets” (Ex. 32: 16). To which our sages made the following comment:

Do not read harut (=incised) but herut (=liberty), for anyone engaging in Torah is a free man. (Ethics of the Fathers According to R. Nathan, ch. 2)

Dr. Hannah Kehat is the founder and director of Kolech, the Orthodox womens’ forum, and researcher and lecturer in Jewish studies, Education, and Gender Studies.

(Jer. 34: 15)

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The Book of Ruth, which is read on the Festival of Shavuot, is one of the best-developed narratives in the Bible, complete with dramatic tension, an intricate plot, strong female characters, death and tears, stark poverty alongside comfortable wealth; it even has a happy ending. The kernel of the story is the selfless choice made by Ruth the Moabite, a young widow, to stay with her mother-in-law, Naomi, who had no status or property whatsoever, and return with her to the Land of Judah. “For wherever you go, I will go,” says Ruth, “wherever you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.” Why was the Book of Ruth included in the biblical canon? Perhaps it was due to Ruth’s lineage, as King David’s great-grandmother – or perhaps due to its underlying values. Midrash Ruth Rabbah attributes a good explanation to the amora Rabbi Ze’ira (who made aliya from Babylonia to Eretz Israel): “This scroll contains neither the impure nor the pure, neither prohibition nor permission; why therefore was it written? To teach you the great reward for compassionate deeds” (Ruth Rabbah 2, 14).Hesed (compassionate deeds) is the keyword for understanding the Book of Ruth. One wishes that the following story, it too dealing with

converts to Judaism, had reflected the concept of hesed. It happened during the Second Lebanon War, or perhaps during Operation Cast Lead, or maybe on some mission between the two. In fact, I remember exactly when it happened, but I can’t reveal the details; they must remain obscure. Neither will I divulge the name of the story’s hero, though he is no longer with us. We’ll call him Uriel. He was a soldier. His parents, who made the ultimate sacrifice, can be Moshe and Sara. True, their son is buried deep in the ground, but you never know. I can think of more than one person who, if the true details were known, might decide to reinter him. Uriel’s family is a member of one of the 60 congregations in Israel that are affiliated with the Masorti movement. We’ve known them for years, a wonderful family. They made aliya in the 1990s and become well-integrated into Israeli society. Uriel celebrated his bar mitzvah at our congregation. He was an outstanding student in high school, a hiker, a bright, happy boy. When he was drafted, no one was surprised to hear that he chose to serve in an elite unite. The news of his death reached us late at night and plunged us all into deep pain. Then - we tensed. Uriel’s mother had undergone a Conservative conversion: according to the fundamentalists

who are in charge of most cemeteries in Israel, Uriel was not considered Jewish. Where are they going to bury him? Do they know about his mother? Will they allow him to attain eternal rest in the military cemetery, or will they perhaps try to create some secluded plot for him, on one pretext or another? What must we do now – should we tell the parents about these fears? Add to their frenzied sorrow with the shock that their son’s funeral might become a

Eternal RestY I Z H A R H E S S

No example could be more salient than IDF military service for understanding Ruth’s simple explanation of the essence of conversion. “Your people shall be my people,” Ruth told Naomi: belonging to the people takes precedence over belief in its God, the national takes precedence over the religious. According to Ruth’s priorities, the people of Israel come before the Torah. A lesson for our times, perhaps.

Untitled (Ruth and Naomi), Adi Nes, 2006. Color PhotographContinued on page 4 >>

the ones that make us mad enough to spur us to action. And we need partners: natural partners are people with values and courage, just like all of you sitting here tonight. We are most fortunate to be citizens of Israel, the only Jewish state in the world. We are called upon to take part in a gripping, unique, historic moment: Jews deciding what their common values are and how these values should govern a sovereign state in the modern world.Israel’s Declaration of Independence is replete with excellent intentions and teeming with sublime ideals, but in order to implement them we need people who are willing – every day – to do something that will enable us to be “a free people in our land”: the state “ will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all

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Many texts urge us to partner with God: to stop complaining and create a more just, equitable world. Upon receiving the Law at Sinai, when any normal nation would prostrate itself and show some respect for the live broadcast of its religion, we get into a flurry about the Golden Calf; Moses is livid and shatters the tablets of the Law. And God? According to Rashi, God tells him: “You broke them: Well done!”. The broken tablets became a sacred part of the Ark of the Law: we lugged them around with us in the desert, because shattering the tablets is a great Jewish act that set an example for many generations to come. A piece of that act, the shattering of the tablets, is within every one of our consciences: that part of our soul which orients us toward the right and good and serves as our moral compass. The tikkun on Shavuot eve is an opportunity to start finding that place with the compass we are given, without fear, without letting indifference sit us back down in the chair. An example of a courageous act would be joining a political party. Phone your local branch, pay a few shekels, and get involved. That’s how you make an impact on Israel’s political leadership – not on a chair or a couch. We must internalize the fact that being a citizen in a democracy does not boil down to going to the polls once every four years; the job requires commitment, determination and a strong stomach, all year long. We must not be put off by heavy doses of the media: better to balance our diet with a variety of sources so as to know how to wisely pick our battles and when to get angry. Get angry in an informed way. There’s no shortage of infuriating things, we just have to choose the ones that really get under our skin -

its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture” (from Israel’s Declaration of Independence).

A piece of that act, the shattering of the tablets, is within every one of our consciences: that part of our soul which orients us toward the right and good and serves as our moral compass. The tikkun on Shavuot eve is an opportunity to start finding that place with the compass we are given, without fear, without letting indifference sit us back down in the chair.

travesty? It wouldn’t be the first time. We decided not to involve the parents; we readied a battery of lawyers and counted the minutes until the funeral and then during its course. Afterwards, we breathed a sigh of relief, as callous as that may sound. The IDF rabbinate and Hevra Kadisha Burial Society didn’t know anything about Uriel’s mother, as far as we could tell. He was buried like any other Jewish soldier killed in action. No example could be more salient than IDF military service for understanding Ruth’s simple explanation of the essence of conversion. “Your people shall be my people,” Ruth told Naomi: belonging to the people takes precedence over belief in its God, the national takes precedence over the religious. According to Ruth’s priorities, the people of Israel come before the Torah. A lesson for our times, perhaps. What she is telling us is that taking an active part in the history of the Jewish people is no less important

–perhaps even more so – than paying rigorous, at times obstinate, attention to every jot and tittle of purported commandments. Today, when over 350 thousand people who made aliya under the Law of Return yet are not Jewish, according to The Orthodox Jewish law, are living amongst us, it seems that no great effort is needed to prove how extremely pertinent Ruth’s wisdom is to our lives today.. However, that would require courage on the part of the rabbis, and worthy spiritual leadership. The Orthodox monopoly on religious services, awarded by law in the State of Israel, lacks these two qualities. Uriel was permitted to serve in the IDF, but – had he not been killed – if, after his military service, he had wished to marry, the State of Israel would have turned him down pointblank. Any proof Uriel could have furnished of his Jewishness, at the Chief Rabbinate offices where he lived, would have met with an arrogant sneer,

or even cruel contempt. Uriel could have had a Conservative rabbi perform the ceremony, but such a marriage is not recognized by the Ministry of Interior Affairs; for that he would have had to go to Cyprus, because Israel does recognize the authority of the Larnaca municipal officials in performing marriages. Upon his death, Uriel was spared the humiliation of the dead that we were afraid of. But in all honesty and with great sadness, we have to say that every day the State of Israel humiliates the living. May we celebrate Shavuot this year with love and joy, and hope that thanks to the compassionate deeds of Ruth the Moabite, we will learn her lessons and celebrate Shavuot next year in an Israel that is more moral and just.

Adv. Yizhar Hess is CEO of the Masorti Movement in Israel.

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Anat Hoffman heads the Center for Jewish Pluralism of the Reform movement. The Center spearheads the struggle for recognition of non-Orthodox conversion in Israel and is a determined partner in promoting freedom of choice in marriage and divorce

Otherness in our MidstY A E L G O U R I

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It’s hard for two seashells to carry on a – real – conversation.Each one lends an ear to its own sea.Only the pearl-diver or antique dealerCan determine quite safely: same sea. (“Keshev”, T. Carmi)

At times, human multiplicity and diversity become a threat. Surrounded by strangers possessing a foreign spiritual core, an individual in a multifaceted society feels the need to protect his soul. Fear shrivels the desire to come any closer. Someone might steal your identity and substitute an unbearable foreign existence for your own. It then becomes difficult to remember that a complex society also provides richness for our benefit. At this time of polarization and fragmentation, let us recall the words of Emmanuel Levinas,1 who describes the encounter with the Other in all its complexity and beauty, while including the terror it inspires in us. This is the encounter with Otherness in all its intensity, including within ourselves. At first, says Levinas, we freeze, displaying “a new alertness, new perception of the world, a new

1 Following the discussion of Levinas in the article by Rabbi Daniel Epstein, “Seeking the Forgotten Other: A Study of the Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas”, in: The Other: Personal and Interpersonal Aspects, ed. H. Deutsch and M. Ben-Sasson (in Hebrew).

mode of tension in our existence.” This exercise renders the soul attentive to the finest strands of human existence. In this process one is required to throw off the limitations that dull and desensitize the soul. Next comes the need to divest the Other of his otherness, make him potentially familiar, for fear that alterity will be perceived as a threat. Yet this is stealing, and leads to the depletion of two souls. Denying the Other’s otherness is tantamount to denying his humanity: “The Other is not the invention of the self or its reflection; rather, it is precisely that which is totally different. I discover it after coming to know myself.” Only by standing exposed before the Other can I examine my own face in the mirror. The presence of alterity in our lives pushes us to the limits of our existence, demanding that we expand its borders. Levinas teaches us that the Other is not darkness and fear but opportunity, a special event necessitating that we pull ourselves up by the hair to attain hitherto unimagined heights. The terror which stems from difference makes us feel like exiles in our own lives. However, only by fully sensing the Other’s foreign humanity can one truly touch him: “The Other does not simple appear; he is revealed; . . . the face is not an ‘object’ but an event, a happening, a call with moral signification . . .”

The Mother of Sisera looked out a Window, Albert Joseph Moore (1841-1893)

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The gaze can offer (or steal) identity. The Other, even the enemy, achieves presence, is made alive and real.

In the poem “His Mother”, the narrator lifts his gaze, thereby endowing Sisera’s mother with humanity, vulnerability and grief. In contrast to the triumphal Song of Deborah, another voice is heard, one perceiving the streak of grey in the mother’s hair, and hearing her fearful heartbeats.

The call to expand consciousness and existence that “pulling ourselves up by the hair,” is not only for the individual. Our society too, comprising as it does of people who have flocked here from many lands, from different religions and denominations, faces the challenge of preserving the entirety of our identity with all its components intact, despite the difficulty, even near impossibility, of the task. The ability to sense and even empathize with the Other’s pain has the power to restore the theft, and enrich both souls.

T. Carmi’s poem, “Listening,” is from his The Last Sea, Sifriyat Poalim, 1958.

Haim Gouri’s poem was first published in his Wind Rose, Hakibbutz Hameuhad, 1960.

Trans. by Stanley F. Chyet

His MotherH A I M G O U R I

Yael Gouri teaches literature at the Avshalom Institute in Tel Aviv and at academic colleges.

Renewed SpiritA V R A H A M B U R G

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On the sixth day of Sivan, in the year of the Exodus from Egypt, the former slaves gathered at the foot of the mountain to receive the Ten Commandments; ten defining commandments from God. The commandments are fascinating both in what they say and in what they choose not to mention. The Commandments attach sanctity to holidays and history – “…who brought you out of the land of Egypt” – and not to places, temples or people. Also, the Commandments indicate a normative relationship with one’s friends, surroundings and Creator, without saying anything about the relationship with government, the sovereign, or any other human authority. Unlike many biblical narratives that are intentionally set outside of any specific historical time, for “there is no ‘early’ or ‘late’ in the Torah,” the Ten Commandments are fixed in their specific time and place: exactly forty nine days after the Exodus from Egypt, at the foot of Mt. Sinai (very soon after leaving and a long while before finally reaching the Promised Land). Why so? Any reasonably intelligent reader grasps that those few dramatic weeks that elapsed from that fatal moment when centuries of bondage ended were hardly sufficient to negate the experiences of slavery or to counterbalance them. It is obvious that many generations have to pass in order to rectify the results of national trauma on such a scale.

It is equally obvious that, less than two months after the bondage of our ancestors in Egypt ended unexpectedly and miraculously, they could not have been expected to understand, assimilate or apply those absolute values of freedom expressed in the declaration of independence to which they pledged allegiance at Mt. Sinai. Nevertheless, the timing is of immense importance for creating the foundations of values which would become the underpinnings for Jewish culture throughout the ages. At the time, the covenant was contracted between God on the giving end and the people on the receiving end; eventually, it became a contract of basic social existence, for controlling our sometimes animal instincts, overcoming desire, and subjugating power and force.

When we in modern day Israel talk about the chances of reaching an agreed constitution, the discussion nearly always peters out in a collective sigh of “oh, well, too bad”. Too bad that Ben-Gurion failed to draft a constitution back in 1948. Things that are feasible upon the establishment of a state often become impossible over the intricate course of life. This was understood quite well by God and Moses, who therefore proceeded to articulate the first stage

of the constitution at the very first opportune moment. The principles underlying the Ten Commandments, along with the way in which they were delivered, make them one of the most relevant events for modern man, and a good point of departure for the renewal of the Jewish spirit in our time. They – God via Moses – addressed, in the first person, each individual who was present at that event, and, through them, each and every one of us. God addressed not the collective but each individual conscience. “You shall not murder” – yes, you! “Honor your father and your mother” – your own, personal parents. “I the Lord am your God” – it’s between the two of us, all alone, intimately, without the corrupting mediation of the establishment and its organizations. Hence, the Ten Commandments are a Law for the individual; for the individual’s rights and liberty.

In the circumstances of contemporary life, during this festival, it becomes evident that the Ten Commandments can serve as a moral platform for a new relationship between individuals. What is a covenant between individuals? There are two basic methods for the governance of society. One is by meta-organization: state, community, or ghetto, where the source of power and authority filters down from the organization to the individuals. Another method is a social, constitutional agreement upon the basic rights of each human being, which can never be compromised. Men and women have innate liberties of which they cannot be deprived, under any circumstances whatsoever. The social organization of individuals sanctifies the rights of the individual,

just as we dreamt of in Egypt, and just as we pledged at Sinai. Henceforth, the Exodus from Egypt will no longer be merely a heroic, symbolic slave uprising but an effort toward a renewed, beginning for human culture and interaction. The totalitarianism and tyranny of the Egyptian empire left no room for individual sense of self or personal liberty. In this sense, the violent empire and the beast of prey are identical: inhuman creatures, insatiable, with uncontrollable desires. Such animal totality is the object of the rebellion by Moses and the Israelites, with the Ten Commandments as its alternative: from bondage to freedom. But not to be free of one’s shackles only to become a savage, driven by animal appetites; on the contrary, the Israelite who signed that accord at committed to being a free man who can curb his own whims, by choice. Not to kill or steal or do other things harmful to the liberty of others.

In contradistinction to the Egyptian monarchy, with insatiable desire for unlimited power, we set up a model existence of a human being who is attentive and sensitive to his or her surroundings, with the freedom to master his or her instincts and not to live at the mercy of animal appetites. The values of the Ten Commandments are set up in order to create a better future, ensure that yesterday’s slaves do not become the evil masters of tomorrow. This is not just a chapter in the history of a nation and of Egypt; it is a call for the utopia for which every human reality must strive. For we are the citizens of the new, alternative empire; the empire of Israeli values, which came into being in the desert but has yet to fully manifest itself.

A covenant between individuals [...] is a social, constitutional agreement upon the basic rights of each human being, which can never be compromised. Men and women have innate liberties of which they cannot be deprived, under any circumstances whatsoever. The social organization of individuals sanctifies the rights of the individual, just as we dreamt of in Egypt, and just as we pledged at Sinai.

Ten Commandments (detail), 2008. From the www.nomatter.com Project