The Exodus of the Psalms and Prophets

The story of Israel’s deliverance from Egyptian slavery, in addition to being the main theme of the book of Exodus, is frequently mentioned in the subsequent three books of the Pentateuch and crops up in many other biblical books as well. Scholars term these internal references the “exodus tradition.” Brian Britt writes:

The prophets (for example, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Hosea) frequently cite the divine redemption of the exodus [not only] to rebuke Israel for being faithless and ungrateful but also to encourage Israel during the exile with a promise of deliverance even greater than the exodus (Isaiah 43). In Isaiah 19, divine justice against Egypt takes the form of civil strife, oppression by a tyrant, and drought, leading the Egyptians to worship the God of Israel. In the Psalms, the exodus also serves to remind Israel of divine rescue, often in terms of the cosmos and nature as well as history: “He divided the sea and let them pass through it, and made the waters stand like a heap” (Psalms 78:13). . . .

The prevalence of the exodus tradition in the Bible demonstrates its importance as a foundational collective memory from ancient Israel that predates the [Davidic] monarchy and survives into the time of the early rabbis.

Read more at Bible Odyssey

More about: Exodus, Hebrew Bible, Prophets, Psalms, Religion & Holidays

It’s Time for Haredi Jews to Become Part of Israel’s Story

Unless the Supreme Court grants an extension from a recent ruling, on Monday the Israeli government will be required to withhold state funds from all yeshivas whose students don’t enlist in the IDF. The issue of draft exemptions for Haredim was already becoming more contentious than ever last year; it grew even more urgent after the beginning of the war, as the army for the first time in decades found itself suffering from a manpower crunch. Yehoshua Pfeffer, a haredi rabbi and writer, argues that haredi opposition to army service has become entirely disconnected from its original rationale:

The old imperative of “those outside of full-time Torah study must go to the army” was all but forgotten. . . . The fact that we do not enlist, all of us, regardless of how deeply we might be immersed in the sea of Torah, brings the wrath of Israeli society upon us, gives a bad name to all of haredi society, and desecrates the Name of Heaven. It might still bring harsh decrees upon the yeshiva world. It is time for us to engage in damage limitation.

In Pfeffer’s analysis, today’s haredi leaders, by declaring that they will fight the draft tooth and nail, are violating the explicit teachings of the very rabbis who created and supported the exemptions. He finds the current attempts by haredi publications to justify the status quo not only unconvincing but insincere. At the heart of the matter, according to Pfeffer, is a lack of haredi identification with Israel as a whole, a lack of feeling that the Israeli story is also the haredi story:

Today, it is high time we changed our tune. The new response to the demand for enlistment needs to state, first and foremost to ourselves, that this is our story. On the one hand, it is crucial to maintain and even strengthen our isolation from secular values and culture. . . . On the other hand, this cultural isolationism must not create alienation from our shared story with our fellow brethren living in the Holy Land. Participation in the army is one crucial element of this belonging.

Read more at Tzarich Iyun

More about: Haredim, IDF, Israeli society