Leon Kass on How Exodus Created the Jewish National Narrative

This week the Jewish people is not just celebrating, but reenacting the Exodus from Egypt that our ancestors undertook many generations ago. The complex, ritualized retelling of this story can be found in the Haggadah, the text that structures the Passover’s ceremonial meal, or seder. But of course the defining telling of this story is to be found in the book of Exodus itself.

In 2021, the great Jewish thinker Leon Kass published a searching, capacious commentary on that book called Founding God’s Nation: Reading Exodus. Not long after, he sat down with Mosaic’s editor Jonathan Silver to record a video course based on his commentary, consisting of eight, roughly hour-long episodes. This week, we’re bringing you the audio version of episode two, focusing on the national narrative created in the text. The episode addresses the character of Moses, the nature of Egyptian society, the purpose of the plagues, and the essence of awe and reverence, all against the backdrop of the Exodus’s three defining components: the promulgation of a national story, a law to structure society, and an elevated national aspiration that provides the Jewish people with a mission.

You can watch the entire video course, free of charge, by enrolling here, and you also explore our other courses as well.