The Significance of Cultural Rituals Biblical Series Exodus Episode 6

hello everyone welcome once again to The Exodus seminar we're in chapter 12 in the at the end of the sequence of plagues in the midst of the tenth plague I'll just introduce everybody briefly and we'll start with Exodus 12 14 which is a description of the memorial memorializing of Passover on my right is Jonathan pajo Stephen Blackwood Dennis Prager Greg hurwitz James Orr and Guinness Oz thank you gentlemen for being here and I'll read 12 14 and I believe Jonathan pegeot was going to open for us and this day shall be unto you for a memorial and you shall keep it a feast to the Lord throughout your Generations you know keep it a feast by an ordinance forever okay I mean I think what I wanted to say about that is really you know we talked about memory a little bit in the early episodes this idea that memory is the connection and distance is a good way to understand it and so as you have an origin and this Passover is the say the origin of a new beginning for the people of Israel and and there's this little even giving of the law which will be repeated in a bigger stance when they get to the to the mountain um and so as you move forward from origin the manner in which you stay connected to that which bound you together is memory that sounds obvious it sounds actually like a boring thing to say but that memory has to be enacted it's not just a mental exercise you know and that's why it's enacted ritualized it has to be ritualized that's why it's enacted in feasts that's why it's enacted in celebration that's why you have the Fourth of July that's why you have these these practices that make you remember important aspects of your history not just just to remember it but to to remember why we I even exist together yeah well it might be why are we something and not nothing why is the United States a country not just a bunch of different things that exist on the land yeah well and you don't know how much of that is because everybody celebrates Thanksgiving together for example the United States well you know there are technically there are multiple forms of memory right there's semantic memory and it's basically propositional and so usually when people say I remember something because we're so propositional and rational we think we mean you remember something you can state but there's there's a narrative memory that's a separate system from that and then there's a procedural memory which is just action so procedural memory is how you know how to ride a bike you can't say it but and you know it it's built into your body and we don't know how crucial it is to how we even regard and a memory as important in relationship to those three of those three because it might be that the memories that we are likely to regard as important are actually the ones that we act out not only the ones that we can say this is precisely what I was going to say exactly the same thing about procedural memory that's so funny because I was thinking like when people have a stroke a lot of times they lose their language but can still ride a bike right so you encode it down right you were talking about some of the possessions how they move from the prefrontal cortex to the lizard brain right so the ritualization is the process of encoding in the nervous system and that memory predates or or exists even when everything else is wiped away but it's foundational what's remarkable here is that the thing they're going to remember hasn't happened yeah but no that's it's also very important this is memory is not in time people think a memory just as something in time it's just distance and so you can remember a purpose right you can remember the reason why we're working in a building that's not a remembering in time to remembrance toward the purpose Christianity we have eschatological memory which is that we remember our death we remember the return of Christ even though it hasn't happened yet because we see it as the thing that binds us the thing the thing that we're moving towards and if you cease to remember it you start to fragment and break down but this is so remarkable because this is the first time the people come in since the very early chapters when they were a dead loss with their slavish mentality so here they are the first time so they're doing it by faith the Passover hasn't happened till the next day and that doing it with hope he talks about it forever do you establish the kind of memory that Jonathan just described in some sense by faith for example when you remember your purpose right because that isn't normally how memory is construed right but if you are referring to something that hasn't happened yet it is the memory of it is the memory of a possibility a beckoning possibility that constitutes the memory whether you're right Oz what's wonderful here that we finally see the people of Israel like coming together until now it's been like you know they're they're complaining against Moses we don't hear about them too much and then finally it's like no chapter 12 is the first chapter where they're called the congregation not just a people yeah well and there's an insistence here too that it's the feast that unites the myth if this is the founding of the state in some real sense there's an insistence that it is the feast that unites you and I think our comments yesterday about the breakdown of the the family dinner table are relevant in that regard because we really don't know what binds a family together and I certainly do when I look back on the time I spent with my parents I do remember I would say holidays we took together they stand out but there was a lot of eating together associated with that but what I remember about family life was primarily or oriented around the table that's when everyone comes together and when everyone has to share what they have to say and when you're sitting there as a union and and God only knows what how how important that is to Identity given that we're food sharers so the the Milton's Lucifer then let's say is the intellect that falls in love with itself is a migration away from the procedural memory right the rituals that bind us and and revivify us right into the Guilford certainly think that as well and when he Ian mcgilchrist when he's writing about the difference between the left hemisphere and the right because the left hemisphere does have a proclivity to fall in love with its own pronouncement and it is fundamentally a semantic memory system it's not imagination it's not procedure whereas the right brain is knowledge how rather than knowledge that and so it's much easier to enact physical rituals than to constantly affirm some doctrinal commitment or propositional commitment well it's also I think we all understand too that you to really deeply know something is to be able to act it out not merely to be able to re-represent it abstractly like because you can tell me something and even if I don't understand it I can say it back to you and that's we think of that understanding as shallow so and what does that mean and I thought about depth of conceptualization in terms of this memory hierarchy if it's if it's deep it's semantic and it's related and it's represented in imagination and it's represented in procedure and then you really know it and that that goes along with that rogerian idea of congruence too right because all three of those levels what you do and and how your dreams work and what your semantic content is that's all the same so just because quickly say there's a there's this kind of beautiful double character to this this memorialization there's a side of memory that Jonathan is talking about which is that it's it's the repetitions that actually stabilize experience I mean think about you know your your gold fishing a tank with a three second memory you're swimming oh look a castle oh look a castle there's no there's no but you can't even get to Castle because you have no time with which to develop the concept of Castle which allow you to recognize because it's just pure indecipherable you know flux of particularity that you can't it's like being in a in a snowstorm or something that's what experience is without exactly without the frame of the categorizations of memory which which come to be through these repetitions that stabilize our experience of the world um but there's this so there's that on the one hand this is a kind of iconically defining uh repetition that will Define the people and gather it and the this beautiful way but there's also a side to this that I think has to do with with with with a kind of habit of Revelation so you think about you have an epiphany you know you're a great moment oh my God I had this big insight into myself or my family or you know I've been you know big you're kind of a breakthrough moment well that takes you so far as a moment of like okay I get it but then how do you live and and so I think what's partly what's being done here really to say this this this inversion of you know pharaoh and the contrast between pharaoh and Moses if Pharaoh was all about kind of the immediacy of the self and the totalitarian will can't even care for his people whereas Moses is got this alignment uh uh to God which allows him to care for the people the point is and I think this is urgently true in all of our Lives day by day I mean how how do you maintain a a habit of orientation and in some sense I think this is repetition this is this is saying you need repetitions in relation to the Revelation that bring you back again and again and again well when you one of the things children really like and if you want to have a stable life with kids is you build islands of predictable stability and then they because the kids lives are chaotic they're they don't know how to orient themselves in the world and they can't integrate their emotions and their motivations and if you repeat things every day then they build little islands of predictability and that actually stabilize is their emotions and so you want to have meal times at approximately the right same time and you want to have bedtimes at approximately the same time or maybe exactly the same time you want to have a ritual before bed and then the children can play outside of those stable places but without that stability and that would also mean stability of caretaker for example because that's a prime importance especially to little kids they can't build a habitable Cosmos and so it's definitely the case that that that that repetition is the basis you might say that repetition is the basis of the state right yeah we've talked about the liberating power of limits and that's really what these rituals and ceremonies do it's a way at the individual level of imposing order on the chaos Beyond but not necessarily in in this context not just constructing it it's reflecting established created orders and and parameters it's echoing that as Jonathan was talking about yesterday that's the significance of the of the uh you know Paul Johnson says the Hebrews created history as we know it there was a lot of our discussion has been scientific yours obviously you're a clinician science deals with the regular the repeatable what happens all the time whereas history deals with the unique the singular the unprecedented and that's what the Passover is and that's what the Exodus is and so we never want to lose that Singularity of what's Happening here it doesn't it can't be fully explained by all the other parallels from all the other disciplines but the repetition of the Passover it's a it's not just a no I agree it's not just a memorial it's it's a sort of every time the Passover happens when Dennis could speak to this it's a it's a way of remembering the is the people of Israel to remember it as if they were there so why do you by the way forgive me but you'll love this uh when a Jewish kid a religious kid raise the religion speaks about the Exodus not just kid I take that back adults we always say we were slaves and it's that's the way it is in the Haggadah not they were slaves I wish Americans said we forgive me fought the British uh or we fought for independence you're welcome back anytime I don't know if she'll want us right now this is a very serious problem I had two very quick points to that without ritual no religion or Nation Will Survive part of America's great problem is that Independence Day has become hot dogs and uh and and beer or drinks and not a celebration of Independence uh Thanksgiving is losing its meaning in fact it's been renamed indigenous people's Day by by the woke if you don't have ritual you don't survive and one other point that I I think you'll find provocative so Jews always wonder if God took us out of Egypt why didn't he take us out of Europe right very logical question about the Holocaust they're running all the massive sufferings of Jews and I have a theory that the reason it is so important to for a Jew to Remember The Exodus is because that's when God did intervene on our behalf and we have to remember that in light of the fact that he won't be intervening that much in the future I have a question about that which is um the um Dennis when you're talking about that we we fought the British let's say right or we were there how do we make a differentiation between saying like well we were slave holders like how do you make a differentiation from the positive versus the things that are negative which then become the collective guilt issue that we're discussing my answer to that is slavery was ubiquitous it was Universal Freedom was unique to the experiment that America embarked on so you celebrate what is unique not what is what it of course you don't deny that we we were slaveholders uh that is correct but by the way even then we isn't fully accurate half the country we're not slave owners vacuum far more than half most Southerners were not even slaveholders but uh I think the you you emphasize what is unique both evil and good the Holocaust was unique so we speak about a war is not unique uh but but but the Holocaust was uniquely evil and the founding of the Freya Society in human history was also unique so that that to me would you know that's how I would address that he also trying to do what you can to separate the wheat from the chaff it's like it's clearly the case that we did all sorts of terrible things in the past but that doesn't mean a that all the things we did were terrible or B that there wasn't a liberating spirit in amongst the catastrophe and the Tyranny and also I think you can make a pretty damn strong case that in a miraculous way the liberating Spirit won we don't have slavery now that's the miracle not no it's not surprising we had it in the past that's absolutely predictable and that's part of this issue of the unique and so the problem with merely diagnosing the past as a storehouse of complete atrocious catastrophe is everything becomes Chow yeah of course of course I just mean it's just interesting to think it through because it's like did we win the civil war right because it's hard it's right it's like there's certain parameters that get difficult for people around identity I have a question just a question about um we've decided here that this memorialization is a repetition and and it's also a foundation and so then that begs a question that that's germane to what we discussed at the end of yesterday which was why is it the Passover that becomes the memorial and the foundation and is it the sacrifice of the innocent and is this because it's the sacrifice of the Lambs and the blood and so is the idea here that the foundation of the proper state is the voluntary sacrifice of the innocent is it is that what's happening no I don't think it's I don't think I think that we need to see it really in terms of of Egypt as as opposites so you have the end of a world Egypt ends God takes the seeds out of Egypt we have a new beginning which is also based on sacrifice it's based on voluntary sacrifice but that's the magic of of the the Passover sacrifice it's as if if you are willing to give your firstborn to God God will give him back to you that's the surprise okay so is it founded on the principle of voluntary sacrifice no I don't think so you don't think so okay I think the plain and obvious thing this was a night of Liberation right I agree with it went up right now but but there's also a sacrificial element that's that's true and the Passover how it happened but the basic thing and they remember it through history Isn't it nice they were free they say in our prayers over and over Justice for the Christian the the crucifixion and Resurrection are the central events I believe of Christian theology the central events of Jewish Theology and I didn't make this up it is constant in Jewish prayer is creation and exodus if If you deny either of those and you're certainly free to you you have put yourself outside of Judaism that that is the Jewish normative view yeah but I think it's not necessary it's not a zero-sum game you know we're talking a lot about that correction and Redemption these two these are the two sides of the same coin Justice for Christians Crossing resurrection and two sides of the same coin yeah but it's it's a recreation of the world the giving up of your first fruits and the giving up of that which is primary to God and then the surprise of God saying actually no you can have it back right and I think that that's definitely part of the it's part of the story it's not the only thing I know I wouldn't want to make it by the way do any of you have a reaction and I'm not I'm not you know urging that there be one but I that idea that we Jews have to remember this because God may not intervene again does that strike you as plausible because you do have the mystery in in the Bible in some sense and maybe in history itself is well if God was there so much in the times that are being described where did he go as time progressed right that's the Deo subscondus problem and and and and I don't know exactly how to contend with that but but do you keep saying God is not involved in Israel I believe in the ultimate sense there's no question because God God is uh constantly the the guardian of Israel it's that's repeated but it's clear that you know most people don't know that in the 1660s about the same percentage of Jews in Europe were murdered uh as were by in the Holocaust about a third uh or well in two-thirds in the case of the Holocaust I believe but one-third and the malinsky programs in in Ukraine and slash Poland uh and um God Saves the Jewish people but but not the Jews and and that that by the way I have comfort in that I don't expect to be individually saved but I I just want to note that religious Jews in death camps celebrated to the best of their ability the Seder so here they are facing gas Chambers and saying thank you for saving us we remember you saved us from from Pharaoh it's an incredible thing and that's why I say it gives it gives comfort even though I'm not being saved now but I know you intervened on our behalf I think it makes sense for people to believe in the fundamental ascendance of the spirit that leads us from slavery under all conditions because to not have faith in that is really in some sense to lose faith in life itself and so that would even be if you're in in the situation of a camp what do you have to have faith in well in some sense just to live and I think this is something solzhenitzen observed too to just to live under those conditions you still have to believe in the ascendancy the ultimate ascendancy of the spirit that calls men mankind out of tyranny and isn't it where the story picks up because God existed before the Jews were enslaved in Egypt they existed when all the firstborn were killed right and so it sort of depends where where it is because you could say to them then when they were in Egypt before God said I've heard I've heard the cries of my people it's sort of the same position right the god wasn't there right so we can exactly correct okay okay so I would like to point out that we've gone through one one verse so far we need to get Shapiro in here reading seven yeah so seven days seven days shall you eat unleavened bread even the first day you shall put away leaven out of your houses for whosoever eateth leave and bread from the first day until the seventh day that Soul shall be cut off from Israel and in the first day there shall be Unholy convocation and in the seventh day there shall be an holy convocation to you no manner of work shall be done in them save that which every man must eat that me that only may not be done of you it's another application of a set of laws here and and an establishing set of principles and ye shall observe the Feast of unleavened bread for in this self-same day have I brought your armies out of the land of Egypt that's to your point with regard to Freedom therefore shall You observe this day in your Generations by an ordinance an interesting ordinance because an ordinance is something that that ordinates it's like a coordinate it's like a it's an establishing system by an ordinance forever in the first month on the 14 month 14th day of the month even at even you shall eat unleavened bread until the 1 and 20th day of the month at even seven days shall there be no leaven found in your houses for whosoever eateth that which is leavened even that Soul shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel whether he be a stranger or born in the land you shall eat nothing leavened in all your habitations shall ye eat unleavened bread it's very much emphasized there this this structure of rules well it's not called Passover in the Torah it's called the holiday of matzas of unleavened bread and do you think we analyzed the motif of 11. by the way I will I will get a ski Jack is that what it's called I will buy one for anyone who could name all the holidays of the Torah does this include all the people who are listening send in your responses no no I'm sorry could you think you could it's an interesting question and by the way there are seven again seven oh I can't come on Greg oh don't let us down I'm I'm gonna kick this to Oz you've got us Dennis the vast majority of Jews couldn't do they would they would because one is very obscure and I have a all right so Shabbat Rosh Hashanah which is called the day of of trumpets Yom Kippur Passover Pentecost Shavuot Tabernacle Sukkot uh and then the seventh which is the the one trips up everybody including most Jews called shmini atzeret it's his own holiday it's the after the seven days of Tabernacles is the Eighth Day shmini means eighth at cerate is convocation meeting it is the only holiday that has no purpose other than having a good time it doesn't commemorate anything it is a fascinating thing so I don't I don't work on Jewish holidays that are in the Torah that's so I remember many of you know Larry Elder who who ran you know for for governor in California a dear friend of mine so we used to be on the same station in Los Angeles and I would be on in the afternoon and he would follow me and in his talk show Annie so I said so Larry just want you to know I won't be on tomorrow oh he goes why I said all right well you know I don't broadcast on Jewish holidays and he goes which holiday is it and I gosh Mini at Sarat and the guy was convinced I made it up to take the day off for all the Elders of Israel and said unto them draw out and take you a lamb according to your families and kill the Passover and you shall take a bunch of his salt and dip it in the blood that is in the Basin and strike the lintel and the two side posts with the blood that is in the Basin and none of you shall go out at the door of his house until the morning for the Lord will pass through to Smite the Egyptians and when they seeth the blood upon the lintel and on the two side posts the Lord will pass over the door and will not suffer the Destroyer to come into your houses to Smite you and you shall observe this thing for an ordinance to thee and to thy Sons forever it's a mark of proper sacrifice Mark of the sacrifice of the lamb and that stops the power that destroyed Egypt from now and will continue to disrange it from now destroying the Israelites and that's part of the foundation of the state of Israel is that okay okay but it's in Reverse isn't it I mean also saying earlier that the the sacrifice to commemorate and constitute the people of Israel and to remember the liberation of the people from Egypt happens before before the before the event before as it were before the liberating event so liturgy and history are kind of sort of flipped around and they constantly interwoven as we'll see in the rest of the yeah well that's an interesting thing too you know one of the things that Mercier elliotta pointed out that was that the primary religious Revelations of a society often occur prior to the establishment of the society so for example the Egyptian religious Revelations were established at the beginning of the Egyptian Dynasty and then it's almost as if they ran their course you know they had this intense motivational significance as animating stories but that was there as a prodroma to the culture itself and not as a derivation from it and that has something to do with the the power of the spirit of of a newly revealed truth and you'd say well what's a newly revealed truth it's like because that sounds just like religious language but it's not it strikes you with the force of a deep intuition and so then you're motivated to integrate yourself around it but not only that if it's a really powerful revelatory idea and you share with other people they're drawn into that right away they find it equally exciting or they're equally filled with enthusiasm and that's that's a real mystery that that that that that happens at the beginning of a Enterprise in some sense and I think that's partly what this marks is so because obviously the fact that this is what the Israelites should do to protect them from the ultimate avenging spirit of God this is a revelation they're not thinking this up by themselves and it's a surprising Revelation it's partially how narrative contract Works in stories right you have to introduce something in the First Act let's say the three act screenplay to not have it feel like a deus ex machina so you can't have two acts and then have all of a sudden science fiction in the third act you have to have the language of any narrative has to be embodied in the opening in the First Act and it's part of the narrative contract that you make and so in a lot of ways it's interesting that's part of that's this reflection in some sense of the same idea that Jonathan had about memory is that by what you're doing right at the beginning of the story is you're actually establishing a contractual relationship about the how the history of the characters is going to progress and the reader accepts that contract that's part of the suspension and disbelief well then if you violate it all you do is annoy your reader that's right and part of it is what's Fantastical or coincidental can happen in the first act right you can say well how is it possible that an undercover Navy SEAL happened to be on the hijacked airplane and it's like well all the times it didn't happen we didn't make a movie about it right it's fine to do in the First Act but if that if we're reliant on that to continue the narrative in the third act then it doesn't it doesn't hold together well then you don't have a story you have a sequence of deus ex machines and that's not a story at all it's completely unimaginable well what happens with the story is you set the conditions into place in the narrative contract and then what happens the best moments that we find in in literature and film is when something happens and it's completely surprising and makes sense at the same time yeah right there's these moments where there's a Confluence and part of that is because that's what happens in a joke right and that's what happened especially a great job and it punches because you start to establish a pattern and then you invert it but the pattern has to be late what's that rule of threes in a joke yeah well it's always right it's it's Yeah you mentioned I think you mentioned this the other day that one is can't start a pattern obviously two again coincidence and then with the third yeah and you reverse the pattern in a joke right so a narrative you need all of the clay the material that is the World building let's just say it has to it has to exist at the beginning a comedian I had on my radio show told me what every joke must have and it it permanently stayed with me and he was right surprise and a victim analyze any joke you know and you will find that that is the case even if the victim is yourself doesn't matter that's the best kind of the best the best kind of joke the English are particularly good at that is that self-destrated you bet and that's is that true not at all not at all yeah and it shall come to pass when ye become to the land which the Lord will give you according as he hath promised that ye shall keep this service service so this is something you're doing for for your you your fellow man and God in service and it shall so that's a feast in in service of the Lord in the wilderness and and and okay okay and shall come to pass when your children shall say unto you what mean you by this service that you shall say it is the sacrifice of the Lord's Passover who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt so that's what's being celebrated is the fact that that Israel is now permanently spared in some sense if they follow God's dictates from the destroying Spirit who demolishes the tyranny that's that's the part of the Covenant idea it is the sacrifice of the Lord's Passover who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt when he smote the Egyptians and delivered our houses and the people bowed their head and worshiped so they're humble in in response to this salvation from the spirit of tyranny and the consequences of the spirit of tyranny and the children of Israel went away and did as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron so did they and it came to pass that at midnight the Lord smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt from the firstborn of pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon and all the firstborn of cattle there's another emphasis there I would say too on this the distribution of the tyrannical Spirit right is that and this just seems to me to be so accurate because again we touched on this before that in a totalitarian state it's not top down so it's not just the Pharaoh it's that if the totalitarian spirit is pride and deceit and envy something like that it's distributed to the degree that the society is totalitarian everyone is participating in it all the time and so the consequences of that are visited on everyone from King to even to the captive of the king yeah what do we make of that God so strange the firstborn of the captain well the captive is there's no one in a society who's less part of a society but still part of a society than someone who's in the jail you're still complicity yeah right treat it as as a designated as an enemy of society well and that is certainly you're under the laws of the society well that certainly that was social instance commentary on the gulags you know he said but he regarded himself as complicit even though he was a victim so that isn't the classical discussion there's a solidarity and guilt you're right everyone but there's also people under a bad regime pop it in the neck in the way we don't living say in a democracy and both are right but I think even in the text so that I think just like we saw when you talked about the Pharaoh and the woman behind the mill I think that this is also an attempt to make us understand that this is a tremendous terrible thing we are also meant to have compassion for the Egyptians to a certain extent because like okay the captive in the jail like right okay so this is terrible like this is a Tarot it's the end of the world like in the end of the world everybody pays and so there is a Remnant which is taking out taken out of this end but we are not meant to just celebrate the the the terror that is like you were saying about the we're not meant to just celebrate the terror that is brought upon the Egyptians either because it's the end of anti-creation it's got to be comprehensive it's got to be total yeah I'll be my new gesture everybody will know what I mean and the Pharaoh rose up in the night he and all his servants and all the Egyptians and there was a great cry in Egypt for there was not a house where there was not one dead so here's what's amazing to me about this story is that in conventional or con I mean not conventional sorry in contemporary story terms this is exactly the wrong way that you would tell a story all the information is given first right all the twists and turns then you're told that you're going to celebrate it then you're told how it'll go through the future then you're told what's going to happen then you're gonna you're told all the ramifications and then finally it says what happens and so the telling of this is is speaking to it's not it's not a narrative cognitive level it's literally establishing a story talking straight to procedural memory yeah and it's also traditional storytelling is more to do with this procedural memory and this remembering so think of The Iliad we always think we read The Iliad no people read The Iliad as a ritual event they all knew it they knew all the so the man which is told is rather this anticipation it's like we know it's going to happen so it's actually a work of anticipation towards the story rather than a constant surprise yeah and it's saying here's story make sure you encode it yeah this is what the story is about well children do that in some sense they want to do that with many of the stories their fairy tales they're meant for that they want it they want to take it over you say it and they're like waiting when are you going to say the same thing again yeah right right then you say like you know that when the wolf knocks at the door what is the reason I know I'm fascinated that kids want to do it over in Hawaii well I think partly because they haven't fully understood it but partly because it's so when I watched my son he watched Pinocchio especially the scene with the uh the the fire breathing whale which is basically a dragon which is the climax scene of the entire movie he probably watched that 50 times I was thinking what what's up with you kid 50 times as well it's really it's really complicated idea at the rescue your father from the belly of the Dragon it's like it took him a long time to get that and I don't know it's something like the translation from the the purely representational down into the procedural I think it's and there's a reassurance in it too is right well I used to tell my kids when I took them to a scary movie which was watch the hero that's how you know that's how you become not scared this is scary just watch the hero and then you show them move again they're still scared but the hero wins and you show them the movie again they're still scared but the hero wins and so they especially if it's scary they need to see it repeated and repeated and repeated repeated and repeated to see that there's always triumph over catastrophe and evil that's a real relief to them I want to emphasize something though that is different from that and from the repetition which is we don't start Hansel and Gretel by saying we're going to have a story that's going to be a woman who's going to eat these kids that's how that's going to end here's how we're going to celebrate it here's how you should discuss it here's what it's going to feel like this is more like Rocky Horror Picture Show or like the manner in which people who love Star Wars dress up and then we'll go see stars again and again and again but again Star Wars doesn't say at the beginning here's everything that's going to happen right so it's very interesting it's this is ritualistic this is this is speaking straight into procedural memory it's saying encode this it's establishing a mythology before the story even exists and proclaiming it so do you have some sense of why that's happening at a narrative level or do you think it has to do with something different about how stories were used you know three thousand years ago this is particularly unique because that's the that's the basis for how you how you if you want to establish a tradition with ritual you lead with procedural memory you're encoding it it's not just like a thrilling story right and then you have fans who will want to see it and return to it it doesn't work if you say to Star Wars oh by the way right Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's father wait till you get there here's how we're going to celebrate it there's going to be bar mitzvahs about this right it's like you don't you don't establish all the structures of how a story is going to exist in society and then you sit there while it while it's laid out before you there's no element of suspense because it's not about suspense it's not about holding your attention it's not about holding your attention in the moment it's about it's about encoding the attention through your culture and so it's got a completely different aim from a lot of them that's why you think it gives it's given in this different structure there's another side to that though I mean of course there's on the one hand you when you talk about hearing this children's story again and again I mean that's what ritual is like there's never a life for any human being which you don't need those from those that that constant exposure to the Deep things that remind you what you're about or oh yeah how to live or whatever they're still getting over a ritual like this in human life that's one of the points but I think narratively one of the things you know there's a theological point being made here which is that that you you you can't the Israelites they the the departure or the being The Liberation from the Egyptians like they have to commend themselves to God you know it's not like oh free us and then we'll and then we'll trust you it's like no there's a there's a fundamental casting of the people uh in faith you might say in the goodness Beyond themselves that they have that they believe in and that that there's it's not like you get it and then you're like oh okay fine now of course I've been the Miracles and the so on and so forth in the in the in the in the in the book of in the story up until now but there's a there's a profound sense here that that what what is going on with the Israelites is the contrast to Pharaoh right like no under no terms will you go and the Israel's have to say we will go under any terms and we're not you we don't get the proof first we have to cast ourselves on the principle in which we are putting our life before we go if you're going to fight against tyranny in some real sense you have to fight against the Tyranny before the Tyranny disappears and in order to fight against the Tyranny you have to evince Faith That by appealing to the spirit that will lead you out of tyranny that will work and that's so Preposterous I mean when someone like Soldier Nissan says one man who stops lying will bring down a tyranny it's like what really it's like no obviously not but but not so obviously not and so the faith and and so this is another part of this foundational element in this story is that because the Israelites do events faith in that which transcends tyranny as the foundation of their state right well faith in God I mean I think this is the first time we see them as a you know as a collective as a nation it's a striking verse into 27 just the end of 27 and the people bowed the head right right right and worship right to this speed that's right they're they're they're they're they're they're they're right they're collectively pronouncing their allegiance to the spirit that's fighting against the tyranny of the Egyptians that's right and then just one verse later and it came to pass so it's immediate immediately precedes the sequence of events at midnight but a cabinet habit this this is very important that this first ritual happens in Egypt I mean they believe that God will liberate them but they haven't been liberated yet and so that it's that you might say this brought low yes yeah exactly it's a precondition yeah yeah so that's that Faith as a precondition for liberation well I think that that has to be true because otherwise why would anyone ever fight against the tyranny so that's very that's extremely interesting and it came to pass that at midnight the Lord smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt from the firstborn of pharaoh that sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon and all the firstborn of cattle and Pharaoh rose up in the night he and all his servants and all the Egyptians and there was a great cry in Egypt for there was not a house where there was not one dead and he called for Moses and Aaron by night and said rise up and get you forth from among my people both ye and the children of Israel and go serve the Lord as ye have said so even the Pharaoh now doesn't just say you're free he says you're no longer under the auspices of tyranny but it's incumbent upon you to go serve the Lord it's as ambiguous that though I mean is he as he were conceding to the sovereignty of of the Lord or is it a kind of mocking serve the Lord as ye have said well I think he's at least conceding that the Israelites should do that right as you would do it it's not yet a recognition of the god sovereignty well if you if you took his character seriously you'd probably use that interpretation he's at least willing to admit that the Israelites should do this for sure yeah because he doesn't go out into the desert with them and also take your flocks and your herds as ye have said although the best of them does go with them which is so interesting also take your flocks and your herds as you have said and be gone and bless me also well there's some humility there and the Egyptians were urgent upon the people that they might send them out of the land and haste for they said we all be dead men and the people took their dough before it was leaving their kneading troughs being bound up in their clothes upon their shoulders and the children of Israel did according to the word of Moses and they borrowed of the Egyptians jewels of silver and jewels of gold and raiment and the lord gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians well that answers that question so they lent unto them such things as they required so the Hebrews aren't stealing this at this moment they're being given yeah I see it's symbolic of that transition from slaves to to the new Master to new people to Free People yeah yeah yeah and they spoiled the Egyptians and the children of Israel journeyed from Ramses to sukhoth about 600 000 on foot that were men of the hardest things I I encountered in writing my commentary because I believe it's God's word and I also believe that a reason has to be used so I called it the rational Bible the Torah itself does not sustain the notion that there were two million people that's the it's the tradition among Believers and certainly Jews always say Millions just to give one example uh God says that the Seven Nations in Canaan are all larger than than the than the Israelites so that would mean 14 million people in Canaan it is inconceivable now God can do anything and any Miracle is possible but I don't think I don't think the Torah meant that so I never had a satisfactory answer and I write that I don't have a satisfactory answer doesn't negate my belief in the Divine authorship or anything else but I I won't make up an answer if I don't have one there is an answer that has satisfied me that I came across in doing uh in doing numbers the fourth of the five books which I'm I'm working on now and in a nutshell and if you want more I'll bring in the writing uh it is probable that this is an exaggeration by 10 times do you think it's a metaphorical there's no question in my mind the that we use numbers with precision numbers in the Torah look it's it's very unlikely that it's coincidental 40 days of flood 40 nights on Sinai twice 40 years in the desert it means a divinely important period of time it doesn't mean the number after 39. so they found Middle Eastern evidence of 10 times the amounts that were really there to intimidate foes and to encourage the people look at how numerous I mean will they will be will we be as numerous as the stars in the sky there were trillions of stars in the sky it was it meant literally so uh I I I think that's important because I want to sustain reason and faith we can we can certainly perfectly be willing and should be willing to note that in all our books of fiction and representation we use metaphor poetry and image to make points and that doesn't mean that it's not true no that's a whole understanding true is complicated I think we're invited to see it as a kind of as typological really as kind of anticipating well first it's a crazily High number right right that's the point and so maybe it's saying that it has to do with right how would he speak it says he spoke to the whole Congregation of Israel he spoke to two million people you can't do that with microphones right right yeah but so so it could be what's it a sign of the the Egyptians prospered uh in Egypt they they multiplied over the 400 years that they were in bondage I don't know it's a rhetorical rhetorical 600 chariots aren't there it doesn't fair I have 600 chariots to draw a Counterpoint between the two sort of numbers it also has to do with six I think that because it's a new creation and it's at least a multiple of six that it's it's trying to help us understand that it is related to a kind of a new man or a new creation of man that may well be yeah well numbers we we don't understand how magic numbers were to people who weren't literate they're they're still magic but they're really magic to people who aren't literate just like words are especially written words and the children of Israel journeyed from Ramses to sukhoth about 600 000 on foot that were men beside children at a mixed multitude went up also with them and flocks and herds even very much cattle and they baked unleavened cakes of the dough which they brought forth out of Egypt for was not leavened because they were Thrust out of Egypt right because we're in a hurry and could not tari neither had they prepared for themselves an evictual so that's interesting too they have to there's another Act of Faith right it's like they've got some treasure and that's great but they don't have a lot to eat and they're going out into a desert and and one of the things we want to we want to note here I think that's really important is that as I've thought about this for so long is why do people in such so core to Exodus why do people cling to their tyrannical catastrophe even the one they impose on themselves and the answer is because it's out of the Tyranny into the desert and it isn't clear that the desert is better certainly it could be worse because you could live in a tyranny and you can die in the desert not that you can't die in a tyranny but you have to be and maybe to flee from a tyranny you have to be ready to flee at a moment's notice and you have to be willing to follow immediately what calls you out of the Tyranny and so you know the famous rabbis remark to the Lord one day to get Israel out of Egypt and 40 years and counting to get Egypt out of Israel exactly right and that's why it's again 40. the desert isn't very big geographically speaking and you think what's going on with these Israelites 40 years to get across that desert that's a long time but it's another use of numbers in the same way I would say is that the point is it's three generations it's a long time and so don't be don't be underestimating the dryness or the length of the post-tyranny desert especially if you lose faith and orientation when you're in the desert which is a high probability event and I I've always thought about the the Jewish emphasis on education is like it's the one thing you can take with you as you're driven from place to place that's right well in a book right or a scroll right right your comment reminded me you'll enjoy this so this is not meant as a joke by the way but it is a it is funny nevertheless the rabbis asked so what has God been doing since creation it's a very fair question and their answer is bringing couples together which shows you how hard it is so there's also a little detail I think is important to understand so we talked about how this is the foundation of Israel like this is the new beginning you know the the congregation the Bowing down the the participating and the sacrifice the marking of the doors you have the sense in which Israel is marking itself as different marking itself as together in order to be a Remnant out of this end of the world scenario where Egypt is being destroyed but there's also just like in the ark when Noah crossed the the waters the animals were in the ark here there's also this mention of what we call the mixed multitude and the animals so there's sense in which they're not repeating the totalitarian problem that is there is a room for the stranger to a certain extent and you'll see after that the rules the laws will talk about how you are now going to engage with a stranger and in the laws that the Torah will give you always have to leave the corners of the field there's a sense in which we don't want to reproduce this totalitarian world and which is all work no rest no strange everything is just potential for our identity uh and so this this is some play in this system yeah and so this this mention of the mixed multitude that left with Israel and the Animals is to is to I think is to emphasize that because the next state will have to do with that we'll have to do with the strangers we'll see it's a genuine diversity statement yeah is that even though there has to be a central order there has to be room in that order for well all what would you say for the unavoidably exceptional that's right something like that [Music] um right why strategic well because different ideas and people it's strategic and you know it's it's the opposite of incest right so from a genetic perspective from that from the notion of new ideas and thoughts I mean that's one of the uh a classic right so it's actually it's a much better order to have that that well that's a yin and yang balance too that's right it's to let in is to prevent stagnation and to prevent ossification is you need new ideas you need you need new ground clearance but as we see later on where they kind of distinguish which the laws that apply to the people of Israel and the laws that apply to the stranger there's integration and assimilation but there's a clear distinction still always between so yeah so there's a you'll see there's always warnings about something that's too far right don't don't sleep with the foreigner like that's too far because they'll bring their foreign gods in and I can also I mean obviously don't sleep with your sister because it's like that's way too close like you have to find that that that powerful optimized difference where you where you're able to integrate but also keep your identity at the same and there'll be some strangers that aren't allowed it that aren't admitted at all like the amalekites later on they're just you know complete ban on that yeah the the word Stranger by the way is literally resident non-jew that's what stranger is the Hebrew was gered and gear it means to reside so it is the the person who resides that's why it says stranger and citizen so that's the country that's the Contra distinction is so it's not just anybody it's it's very specific to the non-jew who lives among you just for whatever that's worth yeah because it's not your enemy because your enemy is also the stranger and he wants to attack you now you have someone among you but that doesn't participate completely in your identity right now Saint Augustine has the word resident alien yes that's right I have that on my green card yeah yeah exactly yeah yeah resident alien right so that's a specific kind of category now the sojourning of the children of Israel who dwelt in Egypt was 430 years that's the length of slavery I suppose and it came to pass at the end of the 430 years even the self same day it came to pass that all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt it is a night to be much observed unto the Lord for bringing them out of the land of Egypt this is that night of the Lord to be observed of all the children of Israel in their Generations that's the worship of the spirit that brought them out of tyranny and that's a fundamental definition of whatever God is and the Lord said unto Moses and Aaron this is the ordinance of the Passover there shall No Stranger eat thereof but every man's servant that is bought for money will now has circumcised him then he shall eat thereof so now he's participating in that in that Community you see all these rules are about this inside outside relationship how do you manage this resident alien who's not one of you how much does he participate how much can't he participate he can't eat over the Passover but here's how you're going to deal with it so that's a that's that's an attempt to clarify the the borders in to the conceptual borders mostly the conceptual borders but that would also be relevant to what constitutes the borders period because that's partly also how to find what causes they can be within the geographic borders but they still have to be conceptual borders between sacrifice and uncircumcised you know the border is so important because that's the fundamental dispute between conservatives and liberals fundamentally is how poorest the Border should be and the reason that's a fundamental dispute is because we never have an answer to that well sometimes the borders should be really thick and solid so nothing gets in because everything's too dangerous and sometimes it should be completely porous because you need new ideas because you're so tyrannical and that varies always and so part of the reason that the logos between conservatives and liberals is so important is that we're constantly adjudicating the porosity of the borders as a consequence of that dialogue and you can never come up with a fixed answer right what are the borders around gender right it's everything is is this negotiation no I think part of The American's tailmate is they don't discuss the key issue which is citizenship well that's again that's a that's a border issue and Trump was able to make much of that for for that for that reason but but the conservatives don't talk about citizenship they talk about walls and the other side talks about open borders yeah America could take in a huge number if they make them Americans right I think that's what's so helpful about this passage though that it understands that assimilation is challenging it's difficult but at the same time one should be open to the stranger open to the Foreigner we should be open to the possibility of it but they have to be incorporated within the structure through the rituals okay a foreigner and a hired servant shall not eat thereof in one house shall it be eaten Thou shalt not carry forth ought of the flesh abroad out of the house so that's a Union within the house right so that's part of setting up this hierarchy of borders as well neither shall you break a bone thereof all of the congregation of Israel shall keep it that's like a definition and when this stranger sells sojourn with thee and will keep the Passover to the Lord let all his mails be circumcised and then let him come near and keep it that's his symbol of assimilation assimilation eh and he shall be as one that is born in the land hmm for no uncircumcised person shall eat thereof yeah so that's the marker of belonging and that's why it actually also happens to be an external skin which is removed like a garmented skin which is removed right well it's also something that allows the phallus the fellow-centric fellas to shine forth in some real sense Well it Well you got it you got to put blood in the deal like it's not as easy right yeah that's right that's right yeah you're always trying to avoid that picture that's good that's good well done one law shall be to him that is home born and unto the stranger that sojourneth among you yeah well that's quite something that's definitely a negotiation of identity right there is that you can you can that's how you can bring the Stranger in thus did all the children of Israel as the Lord commanded Moses and Aaron so did they and it came to pass the self same day that the Lord did bring the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt by their armies the wonderful sense of universality there you know one law shall be to him that is home born and unto the stranger the sojourneth among you right a nice mediation between exclusion and inclusion yeah whether it's the same you might say this is the way you see the universality of the god of the Hebrews which is a wrong case there's a long history of understanding of that universality uh but that it's it's not it's ultimately going to turn out to be I know there's a sense in which it is particular to the to the children of Israel but the definition the relation of the people to God is one that is universalizable this is this is this is not uh this is going to turn out to be a revelation that is uh it transcends the Israelites it transcends any particular people Exodus 13 1 and the Lord spake unto Moses saying sanctify unto me all the firstborn whatsoever opened the womb among the children of Israel so that's actually that's actually the child of of what was virginal then as well up to that point in some real sense yeah by the way since it's opened the womb in Jewish law let's find this of interest it would not include a Caesarean birth huh say that again a child of the firstborn of Caesarean is not considered the firstborn under Jewish law wow because it didn't open but they're the ones who can kill my bath nonetheless so there's some Advanced that's what they had in mind sanctify unto me all the firstborn whatsoever openeth the womb among the children of Israel both of man and of Beast it is mine first and foremost is gods and Moses said unto the people remember this day in which you came out from Egypt out of the house of bondage for by strength of hand the Lord brought you out from this place so again that is remember what transcends tyranny that's the fundamental issue here there shall be no leavened bread eaten this day came you out in the month abib and it showed me when the Lord shall bring me into the land of the Canaanites they mean spring means spring spring the season spring so that's a creation creation Motif again Jonathan do you think yeah at the beginning of the Jewish liturgical year is that is that there are many New Years actually okay this is the this is not Rosh Hashanah okay that's that's in the fall right this is the this is that's the one you celebrate but this is this is a a new year a new beginning yeah beginning of new life right okay okay and it shall be when the Lord shall bring thee into the land of the Canaanites Hittites amorites highlights and jebusites when she swear unto thy fathers to give thee a land flowing with milk and honey so we're specifying the destination again that thou shalt keep this service in this month seven days Thou shalt eat unleavened bread and in the seventh day shall be a feast to the Lord and bread shall be eaten seven days and there shall be no leavened bread seen with thee neither shall there be leaven seen with thee in all thy quarters and thou shalt show thy son in that day saying this is done because of that which the Lord did unto me when I came forth out of Egypt well if you're a child and you see your parents doing something especially if they repeat it then you you presume automatically that it's important and notice for me notes not them it's super interesting of what about what Greg was saying in terms of the man in which the narrative is set up is that before the narrative happens they're like this is the ritual on which the narrative is is based then there's the story and then they're like okay now here's the ritual again like there's like repeating now the same ritual it has to act this out that's right yeah right right that it has to be acted out and not merely told or merely represented no I think it's also it's a kind of hinge to the next chapter we don't want to jump ahead but I think it it joins together the Passover and that that moment of Liberation and then the ultimate the second phase of Liberation because they're not out yet well you see in The Sermon on the Mount when Christ talks about going forward to teach the word of God he insists that you act first and do and then teach and so the the action is seen is in Prior as Primary in that abstract and re-representation of the law and the prophets it's still the emphasis there that action is the crucial crucial issue here about so that's also like clean up your room before you criticize the world right what's interesting about the there's for me there's a I'm I'm crassly referring to as a prop but the prop of the unleavened bread appears when they had plenty of time for it to rise I mean that's another thing that's really interesting like everyone could have had a nice you know yeasty dish right but it's almost like the prop is this dropped handkerchief right because moving forward there's not gonna be time and so it's very interesting because it appears before it's another part of this like pre-establishing of what the rules of the of what the necessity what the what the the the tools and the matter of the narrative right they all exist before it happens well there's this drop everything and follow God Motif too and that's echoed continually in the gospels as well the idea that you're no matter what's happening and no matter who you're beholden to even if it's your own fortune in some sense that when the spirit calls you're to drop everything and attend to that 100 percent and of course how else would you escape from a tyranny if you didn't do that because it's not like you're going to have all all the opportunity in the world so to speak I've often been puzzled by this sort of strange Paradox that Exodus is often lifted up as this great Manifesto for emancipation and political Liberation down the centuries as you talked about this in an earlier session didn't you in the 1660s in England and a little bit the civil rights movement and and Antebellum United States but it's strange you know almost immediately or even before they're out the there's a contemplation that that this is sort of uh prefiguring or a declaration that Liberation will be followed immediately by Conquest um by Andrew by a new land will be given that is effectively going to involve conflict that's going to involve a kind of Terror that's going to involve uh the the the in many ways the complete reverse of what's been what's about to be brought about so I I find that so I would say to some degree you know when you escape from a single tyranny psychologically you're immediately exposing yourself to a war of competing principalities and that's that's that's Illustrated to some degree in the attraction of the Israelites towards idolatry it's so you're out of the tyranny it's one thing solid now into you're into the land of potential and multiplicity and then you're subject to the warring of competing requirements and so there isn't any movement from tyranny through the desert into the promised land without subjugation to the war of competing principalities that's that's part of the reason that people also become nostalgic for the Tyranny it's like oh my God now we're free man this is complicated and it's complicated because many things are pulling on you right and so you think well I'm free now it's like yeah you're free to have a thousand Devils plague you instead of one Tyrant and and part of I'm sorry go ahead well I think so I think so much about right in this day and age too like what what balance is what moderation what freedom feels like is somehow standing out on your own and being torn in 360 Degrees equally that's what freedom is now and it's so easy to try and move into account but the multiplicity of identities it's and and so that beckons is freedom well now you can be anything you want it's like oh my God but did you think I want but part of that is is you pull into the cover of one thing or another but I think if you're truly standing on your own in in a culture that doesn't remotely reward that you're torn equally right so Freedom's painful in some regards but you're back to the Dylan you've got to serve somebody right well it's the modern autonomy you serve no one that's why you need the gods itself you need the guardrails the rituals the ceremony well that's why children need that stability they just they just wear themselves to a frazzle they misbehave they there's just no peace in a house where there's not repetition and ritual but to go back to James's thing isn't Israel unique most Nations conquer a land and then figure out their laws and the people have formed before they get to the land and that's part of it in other words there are three if I understand that that's right three Great Moments One we've just liberation second the Covenant and third the tent of meeting and when all those three are in place there are people ready to go to their land but that's very unusual there are people formed before they get there well it begs a question too doesn't it because one of the things there's a lurking question here is it's like well sure the Israelites have just been freed from the tyranny of Egypt and that's all great but it doesn't look like it's all that good for the Hittites the amorites the hivites and the canines the Canaanites and so on well but so so this is being our attention is being drawn to this repeatedly it's like well what gives the Israelites the right to be going in there and taking the promised land from its current inhabitants so you'll definitely come to that you have to go back to Genesis 15 for that sort of thing and it shall be assigned forgive me what is what is the Genesis 15 answer the Lord says you will not get the land until the iniquity I was going to cite that but I didn't remember it was Genesis well that's right the Lord says you have to get there until the wickedness of the people in the land is full so you get the idea oh so you you're not getting this because you're better than others or bigger than others God says this to the Israelites constantly but they're really awful and and therefore there's there is a moral justification it says the providential flip side that's a tough one and it shall be for a sign unto thee upon thine hand and for a memorial between nine eyes that the Lord's law may be in thy mouth for with a strong hand hath the Lord brought thee out of Egypt Thou shalt keep therefore this ordinance in his season from year to year and it shall be when the Lord shall bring thee into the land of the Canaanites as he swore upon to thee as he swore unto thee and to thy fathers and shall give it thee that thou shalt set apart unto the Lord all that openeth the Matrix the first thing also that emerges out of potential right is to open the Matrix is the first thing that oh emerges out of the first thing is anomalous and special and unique because it's the first thing that emerges so there's also that being emphasized there too so in the Pagan Nations the firstborn was a matter of incredible male pride and it's almost hitting it on the head the firstborn here you dedicate to them yeah well you see this specialness of firstborns and families too because well it's the first child and so that that's that's even more remarkable than the next child in some sense because you've already had a child then and you know not that you love the second child any less but that that bloom of of Revelation that's it in some sense the bloom of Revelation is off the second child well because when you have a child and you cross the threshold of being a parent your entire world then the universe is remaining right right right right right right right right but you look in Genesis it's very often the second child whom the Lord favors absolutely well because you have this do you have this tension too Joseph no that's right Moses do you suppose that occurs when the firstborn isn't properly consecrated to God so the firstborn becomes well the firstborn is often an icon of tyranny because he's privileged because he's the firstborn he can easily fall into an alliance with tradition because look at me tradition favors me therefore tradition is right and it's it's then when the Second Son becomes favored yeah well that's a that's also I I think that's adlerian too right I mean it's like the first child fulfills the role in the family and it's like well what roles next when you're born next right it has to be something Innovative or revolutionary right you don't have a revolutionary first child like you would with Moses yeah when there's some evidence for that in the research literature that firstborns tend to be more conservative yeah and there's also the idea of Pride the idea of Pride like in the kind of mythological image of like the devil falling from Heaven you have a sense you have these images where it says things like you know there's a jewel in his forehead like this this images of the of the highest Angel falling and so there's a notion also that the first the the sin of the first or the danger of the first is pride right right so even Saint Peter Christ says you know it's like you're the foundation and then get behind me Satan and every first thing of an ass Thou shalt redeem with a lamb and if that will not redeem it that's a substitutionary sacrifice yeah then they'll shall break its neck so you have to give it up and all the firstborn of men among thy children shalt thou redeem you have to make a sacrifice and it shall be when thy son asketh thee in time to come saying what is this that thou shalt say unto him by strength of hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt from the house of bondage against the sacrifice of like that too that is definitely something children would remember because a sacrifice that involves blood and death is not something that you would easily forget so it marks the importance to put something to death for something definitely marks its importance and modern people can barely understand that because we're so abstracted away from death and you know not that that's always such a bad thing but and it shall be that when thy son asketh the end time to come saying what is this that thou shalt say unto him by strength of hand the Lord brought us out from Egypt from the house of bondage and it came to pass when Pharaoh would hardly let us go that the Lord slew all the firstborn in land of Egypt both the firstborn of man and the firstborn of Beast therefore I sacrifice to the Lord all that open the Matrix being males but all the firstborn of my children I redeem but I think it's important at least for me this passage is very important because I in the in the days preceding days I tried to say that there's a this clear link between the death of the Egyptians and the sacrifice of the firstborn and I think this passage shows it very clearly it says when your children ask you say God killed the firstborn of the Egyptians now therefore you sacrifice your firstborn and and you redeem them but there's a relationship between the CL in the texture can you redeem them with a substitutionary sacrifice and I think that that has to do with this idea that if you voluntarily give up then God will let the world exist the God God that's how the world exists and so God gives it back to you there's a um I want to say something about sacrifice because there's a sense in that you can read this as if I don't know God is taking away something it's yours um my wife had an I hadn't experience I hope it's all right share kind of a personal story recently with long wanted children but not blessed with children and sort of getting beyond the child bearing years and anyway suddenly uh my wife became pregnant and the test and then another test and went to the doctor and still indeed there there it was uh it seemed a miracle and then the next week an ultrasound and there's a heartbeat and it just seemed just this miracle um the next week the heartbeat was gone there was no you know no what that life that had been was was gone of course it's very sad for us um but I was just so thinking about this you know the lord giveth the lord taketh away we have no right to children's children are a gift we have no right even to our own lives in a way even our own lives are a gift and so this notion of sacrifice really it's just giving back what you were given already it's it's not uh it's not as though you make a deal with God in some way that you give him what was yours a little bit of it or the best of it no no no no you're only giving back to God what was Gods thank you Stephen now I want to say I want to say something here I've been trying to avoid too much let's say doing the Christian parallel but I think because Passover for the Christians is extremely important pasca is the the main Feast of the Christian church and I'd like to just point to how Christians have brought this into their story both in a very different way but in ways that are connected directly to the story and so on Passover Christ offers the bread and the blood this the the bread and the blood of the Passover on the doors of the lintel become the the wine that Christ offers as his blood and the bread that Christ offers as well and the difference is that in the Passover of the Christians there's only one firstborn that dies right and that is Christ and that is very strange because he is the sacrifice he offers his the bread and the blood as the Passover sacrifice and then when the spirit passes he is the only one who dies and so that is the manner in which we understand the finality let's say of the of the Passover sacrifice as as as being that so it's it's he he is both the the Redemption the protection and the firstborn in a very strange way almost as the Egyptian child that gets taken but also as the self-offering uh because he is killed by the The Stranger he's also the the Egypt the Israelite thrown into the river he's all those things kind of captured together because he's killed by the Romans right the Romans are in the story of Jesus at the time of Jesus like the Egyptians and so he's both self-offered but also killed he is the the one who protects on the door but is also the Redemption sacrifice for all of us and so it all all the symbolism like crashes together in ways that just that is hard sometimes to fully account for like even now I know that I'm missing elements because it just it just it just seizes you well it is a I mean at minimum speaking secularly it's a centralizing narrative right it's an attempt by The Narrative imagination to bring all the elements of historical narrative into one's place whatever that means and God only knows what that means and it came to pass when Pharaoh would hardly let us go that the Lord slew all the firstborn in the land of Egypt both the firstborn of man and of Beast therefore I sacrifice to the Lord all that open this The Matrix being males but all the firstborn of my children I redeem and it shall be for a token upon thine hand and for frontlets between thine eyes I do not know what that means let's villain in Jewish history that's the the boxes that you see on religious Jews when they pray the black box at the forehead and the black box on the arm they each contain a portion of the Torah on parchment in those boxes there were two examples of this this is called fill in in English it's phylacteries I never met any human who knew what phylacteries was who didn't know what villain was so it's a useless translation but that's what it is it's those boxes so this is another conjunction to remember yes but the proof that it's physical because some Jews have taken as metaphorical and many Christians have taken it as metaphorical Christians don't worry it's filled obviously uh it took me a while to realize and you don't know this until you're in Deuteronomy it follows the law of the mezuzah the what you put on the doorpost which is also a parchment of the Torah so there is a mezuzah on your body and a mezuzah on your doorpost this is the mezuzah on your on your body okay so this isn't this is an instruction to remember so then you might think well you're remembering here the spirit that brought you out of tyranny when we're enjoined upon to never forget the Holocaust are we enjoying to never forget the Holocaust are we enjoying to never forget the spirit the nature of the spirit that overcame the Nazis like what's the proper remembering there it's a it's my my answer will disappoint you but I think it's to remember the horror because we don't want to free it's really remember the Six Million so then I'm wondering is that is that the proper remembering in the biblical sense because what you're told here I'll take you out that's right it's a great question remember the spirit of that which took you out well I guess I guess Jews aren't quite prepared yet maybe over the course of generations to say God took the Jews out of out of Hitler's Europe it's hard to say given the Staggering number who were murdered right well I think it's a mistake not to it's also a mistake not to remember the horror because you also want to appreciate the depths of the Tyranny right and then if something if something can overcome even that what must it be I I like I think we should remember both you you've affected this Drew it's a very powerful Point well you know I start spend a lot of time studying the Holocaust and what I learned from it wasn't the misery although I learned that it was that something overcame the misery and what was it that overcame the misery well that's what we're all trying to figure out Dennis really I mean really that's what we're all trying to figure out well the whole injunction was remember so it doesn't happen again okay remember what remember the misery or remember remember the spirit of sojournitzen or do you remember the spirit of Victor Frankel right do you is it what is what is what we're remembering that which enabled us to overcome the Tyranny and the malevolence it's got to be that because we can't just remember the terror it was Allied tanks that overcame yeah well that's also something isn't it yeah it is yeah I couldn't agree more I'm a tank fan right right right right I think you remember too though horror of how humans can descend yes absolutely absolutely to me that question calls back the conversation we had I think two sessions ago when we're talking about needing to occupy all the players in a narrative right where we're all the Pharaoh we're all parts of it and to me remember yes it means that that was overcome but part of it is also in Remembering not just the horror but the way that man descended and to know that that could be us those were humans who did that just like we could be and in the remembering of that as we were saying like the one thing I think that gives you a shot we've talked about this that maybe being somebody who would have acted out against that that level of organized systemic um social malevolent malevolence is if you have an awareness that that could be of you and so the remembering of all of those parts is the remembering to avoid it so it won't happen again yes yeah that well that's the purpose of memory remembering Trauma from a clinical perspective it isn't so you don't forget the trauma it's so that you remember the trauma but you figure out your way through it and then really the it's this is literally the case the salvific memory of a trauma is the root out if you don't have a root out you the memory isn't there because in some sense what the memory is is the encapsulation of the trauma but without it being a way out without being a way forward the memory doesn't work you're still immersed in the chaos of the trauma so the memory it so that's a very interesting thing to think about the memory itself has a Redemptive structure because you see we don't remember the past so that we remember the past we re we do not that's not the function of memory the function of memory is to remember the past so you don't repeat stupid mistakes and so and that fright that is that scrambling of your neurological Pathways in your nervous system that the trauma is encoded because it's like however you've been humming along before this didn't get you to a place that you could avoid this trial right right so it's a massive shake-up through your cells and then you have to reorder them and reconstitute them or else you're just stuck and you can that's right it's very very difficult right especially because the the more traumatic a trauma is the more it undoes simultaneously and so the more rebuilding that has to take place and the more radical rebuilding it has to be and part of that is is that issue that we're talking about of of like increasingly as I as I you know enter into a semblance of mature as I get older I I tend to think more about the importance of procedure than of getting words right and so with trauma a lot of stuff that people talk about now whether it's Bodywork whether it right it used to be that the talking cure and there's a place for all of this I'm not like denigrating one at the expense of others but there's a necessity of calming your your body and your system there's there's a necessity to calm the procedural state of your body right and merely what we know from the clinical literature merely recounting and re-experiencing the trauma is not Curative in fact if it happens to you accidentally which is what happens in the course of obsessive thinking it's thrust upon you in some sense it just makes it worse we also know that when people Rush In ill-informed clinicians Russian immediately after a trauma to have everybody talk about it all that does is make it worse what do you think about the idea of ritualized memory because one of I I there's a book called The the ethics of beauty I've told you about this book where what he does in that book is he looks at the man in which the Greeks read The Iliad and he said what would happen is the Greeks would go to war and they would kill and they would see horror and they would see all this thing and when they would return before they would re-enter the world they would read together The Iliad in a ritual process so it's like it's a memory of all the horrors we went through which is now filtered through this this story and led into Jonathan that's exactly what you do if you treat people who have post-traumatic stress disorder as a consequence of encountering their own malevolence when they were soldiers so maybe remembering the horror like of Egypt through the Passover itself like through this ritualized memory is a way in which not only to remember the horror but to remember it in a way that is transformational I think that's right I think that's right and the loss of those structures right so Sebastian younger wrote an amazing book about trauma and War right and since World War II the rates of PTSD have skyrocketed even accounting for the fact that people that know what PTSD was and so War for a lot of people is simultaneously the most meaningful and horrifying experience of their life because there's men in going out in sort of packs like for the hunt right you're eating and sleeping together there's an immense sense of meaning with World War II everyone came home to a unified narrative and people had there was a story and and support meaning there was like cut you know men's church groups and there was all these structures were in place and as we're increasingly fragmented it's not like people are seeing more war who were drone Pilots than on Iwo Jima but yet these instances of fragmentation are greater because the orientation of meaning is no longer in place and so the disintegration of these different structures that we have the part of that is seating and storage well that that those disintegration of those structures is in some real sense the disintegration of the memory that guides you into the future and it is the disintegration of The Exodus story because part of a shared vision of the future is a representation of the land of milk and honey and a justification for your actions against what is it the hisites and the yeah and the moabites and and there's no way to come home without it you don't come home like how do you come home from home right there's no structure and so when you used to come home at least there were these similar groups and packs to reorient you but if you come home and everyone's on their phone and everything's augmented and there's no Fellowship then you well then you come home to a war that's right and you come home to like a complete like all you have is the horror of what you live with and the absence of a pack of people with whom you have completely meaning and complete moral confusion about whether or not your placement in that terrible situation had any justification whatsoever and then you then you don't know if you're just as bad as the enemy who was so bad that it was okay to try to kill them when you talk to people in a clinical practice and you get down to the deepest levels it always takes on religious significance that always happens in fact that's how you know that you're at the deepest level and when you're talking to people about trauma you're talking about to them about Order and Chaos and good and evil and and that language automatically emerges in their language and that doesn't doesn't matter if they're secular or not I'd just like to go back to a point you made about why remember the past so I I do I think I have a slightly different take I feel that if we don't we have trivialized the victims lives yeah well that's definitely a mistake right so we have to understand that it was genuinely a sacrifice right and and worse yes and worse right I I know um I in my own life aside from visiting Holocaust sites I I purposely went with my wife to Cambodia to The Killing Fields I don't I don't know any cambodians but I I I just I think I think every parent should take their kids to one of these things because the the Romantic optimism about about life that you can develop in the in the easy life of the West and not know what people have gone through I mean when I think 60 to 80 million Chinese starved by by Mao and we don't know any of their names it's it's it bothers me a lot it's you know I I had a lot more romantic optimism about life after studying the Holocaust than before because I think what you have before it's not romantic optimism it's just naunity and you know what I became convinced of by studying the Nazi camps and and the gulag Etc and not just that was that the spirit that triumphs over that is more powerful than the spirit that produces it and that's really what we're supposed to remember right and then to enact and part certainly part of this is a call to that I I love hearing and I think Dennis I think that also means that there is no minimization of the suffering of the victims because you don't get to the observation that the spirit that can triumph over that is the triumphant Spirit unless you have some sense of how absolutely catastrophically effective that Spirit of desolation let's say an Abomination actually was you have to give the devil his feel his full do to appreciate the strength of that which overcomes them and maybe that's also why we have the Pharaoh Pharaoh's heart hardening continues this is really the day he keeps saying like I'm doing this so that my wonders will shine on YouTube like my wonders and my Miracles will shine like as if it's like I want you to see that despite how harsh and how horrible the Pharaoh is that I will prevail yeah and it came to pass when Pharaoh had let the people go that God LED them not through the way of the land of the Philistines although that was near for God said lest pair Adventure the people repent when they see war and they return to Egypt I think that's so funny it also shows you the fragility of the of this person I love that like everything that's been accomplished and it's like well we better not expose them to war right right and like it's that will scare them back into the Tyranny right or that God can't triumph over that like it's very it's a very interesting it's yep it's the key thing and God it's the key thing that people uh do that Faith lasts a very short period of time that that's so important for people who oh I you know if only I I mentioned this earlier forgive me you know if God would sneeze just say just say hello to me it's or just you know shake this table up and down and say God exists it's not true we have to work to believe in God you have to everything good is done through work that's that's the sacrificial Motif oh that's great right that's your sacrification yet God's also responsive to the emotional makeup of human beings so human situations make a difference God will adjust himself to the particular that's true James when when you sacrifice your pride right that happens and and that's that's I get a bit of a nod to God the Butlers like well can you get can you get a revelation from the Divine well it defends to the degree to which you're willing to sacrifice to work and maybe that's an indication of your faith but you definitely can get a revelation of what's outside your domain of understanding if you're willing to sacrifice your pride you say and you can think about this in a secular way you've been brought low and you accept that I'm wrong there has to be something different than this what is it well you'll maybe you won't Discover it if you ask that but you absolutely won't Discover it if you don't ask so but all along we've seen the Lord has to demonstrate himself to the Egyptians but he's also got to prove himself as Lord to the Israelites and the slavishness they have a long captivity and you take the difference between the greatest generation and the Me decade and so on I mean you're dealing with pretty rough material here yeah well it's not obvious that the Israelites really I mean you said it took a long time but they could have got there in a week if they've been in good condition right right right but God led the people about through the way of the Wilderness of the Red Sea and the children of Israel went up harnessed out of the land of Egypt and Moses took the bones of Joseph with him so that's his ancestors for he had straightly sworn the children of Israel saying God will surely visit you and you shall carry up my bones away hence with you can I just quickly comment on that Jordan there's there's a you know there's a real sense of course in which this is the A New Beginning uh but here we're also reminded that it's not the beginning and it's so interesting just at a literary level right because I know you've given these wonderful lectures on Genesis I mean Joseph has sold into Egypt by his brothers right I mean he's betrayed by his brothers sold into Egyptians or Israelite slaves yes but it actually turns out that that was for the Salvation of his brothers and the whole uh people of Israel when he reveals himself because of the famine in the land right and it's and it's only because Joseph Rises the prominence in Egypt that he's able to gather his whole family his brothers and all of the family into Egypt to protect them from the starvation that would happen if he weren't had not been sold in Egypt and has been that beautiful she saves the Egyptians too well yes and the Egyptians as well and the beautiful scene where he reveals himself to his brothers he says now therefore be not grieved nor angry with yourselves that you sold me hither for God did send me before you to preserve life let's not forget that he's talking about being in Egypt was they were there to have their to have la life preserved and I think this is so of course there's this beautiful literary moment where now Joseph's bones are being carried out of Egypt but there's this profound sense in which you know you don't you things are not what they seem uh and that's why yeah that's right well I then you'd say too that the repetition of these narratives and it's kind of relevant to the retelling of of the Greek story that you referred to is that the narratives are there to remind you to to maintain faith in what is good despite the variability of the present right it's like just just remember the whole story remember the whole story at each moment and and don't let yourself be swayed by the the catastrophe of the present yes and this this having this whole story before us it's a there's a wonderful Theologian who describes memory as a horizon of coherence right and so you know the enactment of this story The telling of it is this it's it's a creation of a world in which we're able to find ourselves in in the work of God and the stability of the cosmos whoever one wants to put it but to locate ourselves and thus have ourselves made in the likeness of or live in relation to uh that goodness has revealed Dennis you were talking about work in relationship to Faith and you might say as well that there's actually no difference between work and faith because you work for the hypothetical future that's what makes it work if you're just if you're engaged in the present and the present is rewarding and in some in and of itself right at the moment that's play work is Faith because it's the manifestation of Faith because you're assuming that the sacrifice of your time now and your effort is serving a higher end of some sort but but not right now obviously because otherwise it's not work and so the sacrificial Motif is crucial in that regard and you could say well Faith requires proof of work so I I couldn't I think it's a beautiful way of putting it my own more more even literal is I think a lot of people today think and I think it's partially the problem of some religious people who have made allowed them to think this way God will appear to you you don't have to seek him and that's a huge mistake because you agree that that's a mistake humility is a precondition for Revelation that's that's true at the secular level yeah and Christ said surgeon and you will find like right right to knock and the door will open not just passive uh waiting to be served yeah to be served right this is a trivial Point never seen it before Dennis but presumably all the other heads of the tribes are buried in Egypt only Joseph gets out I never thought of that before yes amazing yeah well that's right well so Jonathan's comment is that he was the first he's the first slave so he's he's the he's the type of the slave then you'd say and and he's been carried and he's the father like all the other fathers aren't in Egypt right Abraham and Isaac are not in Egypt but the father that is in Egypt the father that brought us Egypt all of this is like the beginning so we're taking it with us only a slave needs to be liberated wait so where did you get the the the heads of all the tribes are buried in Egypt is that on the text the resistance no not literally but only Joseph asked to come out at the edge of the wilderness okay now they're at the edge now they're now they're going into the unknown that write it when they're going into the unknown then you have the pillar of cloud and the pillar of the fire the two pip so that's where they encounter the the yin yang pillars in some sense is at the edge of the known now that's exactly where they exist because that's the border between Chaos and Order and so now the thing that guides them is the balance between the pillar of fire and the pillar of the two pillars are very important I think if you just want to if you know that your Bible to think of the places where there are two pillars we'll see it later in the story of Moses when he defeats him out amalekites these two ramparts you could say like this how the world separates into two feet two legs two pillars is is very important to understand how opposites that's so striking too I I never knew this before you offered your interpretation the other day is that what you have in day is a speck of of dark the pillar of cloud and what you have at night is a speck of light and that is exactly the yin yang Motif and so and the thing that's so interesting about that is that the the neurological uh what would you say interpretation of that is in sense is when is your sense of intrinsic meaning most heightened and the answer is it's always heightened when you're on the border between two opposites because if it's just the thing itself it's boring and if it's just the chaos it's terrifying and when it's meaningful it's right in the middle it's the balance of opposites and that implies in this text like it does in the Taoist notion that it's that intrinsic sense of meaning that's the unerring guide when you're on the edge of the Wilderness and then through the desert that's that's so now you that's so interesting because it brings together the notion that God is the spirit that pulls us all out of tyranny and then it unites it with this image of the balanced opposite that's something man but it's still internally I mean they've left Egypt but they're still under the sway of of pharaoh yeah yeah yeah well they're just on the edge here eh so Exodus left they've left each other I think they leave each other yeah now they're in the wilderness they're in the wilderness of the Red Sea but it's still chaos before the Red Sea they're like they're in a transition period it's it's part of the trusting of the Red Sea as well like all of this is this this final transition that that's going to reveal the new creation by the way this is since we're between chapters maybe this is how I think so forgive me is there a secular equivalent to what we are doing this week our seminar in the humanities course is on the Great Book hypothetically and then now like in a Shakespeare seminar you think that they're I'm not challenging you I'm just it's I always try to juxtapose so you feel that there are six seven Scholars thinkers gathered together for a week uh discussing a Shakespeare play no you'd have a students doing that together with someone but no this is this is this is so common I've never done anything so that's that's an argument I just want to make for those watching and listening I don't think we're just reading the real Jewish tradition Dennis oh I'm totally with that I I do this every Friday night basically and Saturday but uh uh but I I just religion distracts things from people that secularism doesn't that's that's the only pointed I want to make it's like the other one well I don't need a Sabbath I could have a family night every Monday but you won't if God is not behind it and and I think God is behind this for us in different ways but I'm more literal it doesn't matter but for all of us God is deeply involved in this text that's what animates our passion to do this well serious times require serious study Dennis so that's what we're trying to do oh I know at least I don't think secular texts that's all I'm saying and I love Shakespeare evokes the passion and interest that this does I think there's a dancer there are some the Aspen Institute for example has four curriculum on the American founding and that was actually the model behind the Trinity Forum where we had seven curriculum on all the great themes of the West so it is happening in small ways yeah and did you have teams of scholarsity Scholars we had 20 25 business and political leaders a square table and very deep and going through the texts yeah there's a tradition at Oxford and Cambridge roundabout Easter that you would professors would take some of the you know best students away for a week and they would be a sort of regular routine to the day private work in the morning and then you would gather over afternoon tea of course at four o'clock after a long walk in the mountains or the hills and you would settle down around around a text um but it wasn't there wasn't a sense there's not really a sense in in those sorts of reading groups that you are um but you have to exercise the kind of humility that I think it takes like this demands of you this is sort of the shared difficulty of doing what we're doing and deciphering the text that getting the hermeneutics right getting the history right the ceremonial aspects right the philosophy right the psychology right and yeah well the humility is what allows you to get the wheat It's like because if you're Superior it's like well here's why Shakespeare is chaff it's like he was misogynist he was bigoted he was racist it's like well now that's it no more Shakespeare I mean fine for you this is something the Greek fathers like to come back to again and again that actually the the cloud the pillar of cloud and the pillar of and the pillar of fire are really metaphors for the difficulty of the the sort of combination between the accessibility and the difficulty of scripture that God as it were and God himself the talk and thought about God God is clouded as it was in a Cloud of Unknowing it's it's difficult to to understand him difficult to uh think about his name do you think that's what it is here it's a matter of guidance and protection but it's also a matter of fact absolutely so I think you know they're they're right but he's not a bunny rabbit leading them through the desert he's like a pillar of fire and a pillar of clouds just just so just to be clear I mean that there's a there's a sort of there's the literal sense a historical sense there's an anecological sense there's a there's a moral sense of scripture there's a typological sense of scripture just saying that the fathers I think were within their hermeneutical rise to understand this both as signifying as long as you begin I agree I couldn't agree more than there's definitely the guidance issue is crucial and in fact those interpreters would always say it must first and foremost be it's the historical and the literal and then unless metaphor is licensed within the text itself but but it's perfectly justifiable to kind of anchor as Jonathan's been doing others have been doing so well yeah I have a thought about what you just said about what's different and so what's interesting for me is what this is so first of all it's very it's very humbling for me to be here because the level should be that's right that's partly why you were invited that's right just for The Humbling man that's true it's true though I mean but you know there's such a range of knowledge and wisdom in these particular areas that I don't I just simply don't have but what's so interesting when you said that I was thinking about that and one of the things that's different from sitting down and doing like an intense uh seminar on Shakespeare or something else is that the extent to which everybody brings the fullness of their psychological emotional and spiritual perspective what's very interesting is it's a it's a short distance in before I start thinking well that's a casual question right that's blind okay prayer we got to go to Prager on this but in the same way if you're discussing the Tempest always you know people have proclivities but there's and so for me what it's almost like I was thinking about this after the second seminar that we had it's almost like there's a certain distance into writing a book for me where all the characters have different voices and you don't you're not fully I don't mean to sound precious about beckoning The Muse and whatnot but you don't want to have them nailed down like they start to have voices in different ways that aren't controllable but in some to some extent they're predictable it's very interesting how often in this there's a lot of cross questions to different members of us about certain things and that's almost immediately apparent so there's a sort of totality of personality and Outlook and perspective that's brought to this discussion that's immediately apparent right that's something that like I might learn in the course of writing a book about characters or getting to know someone really well right and you think that's brought out by this more than let's say Shakespeare yes that's interesting I think it would take longer with Shakespeare I think if we were in a seminar and we went through Shakespeare there'd be a point that we would settle into this but there's such an amazing well I think this affects us individually more than Shakespeare effects Shakespearean Scholars individually yeah I think that that's part of what I was you know I I think it's perfectly reasonable to make the case that this is a more foundational story yeah it Shakespeare foundational but no no peripheral compared to this yes but Shakespeare Scholars don't celebrate these images every week every year every you know they don't they don't love them they don't live there we live this but this is both personally foundational but also historically foundational for our Nations and conceptually well and foundational for for Shakespearean texts let's say as well I don't live in this the same way that the rest of you do either so it's in an interesting way it's like I'm being welcomed into this conversation differently so it's it's I'm alert to the differences back to the bones of your ass that's right absolutely all right 14-1 and the Lord spake unto Moses saying Speak unto the children of Israel that they turn and in Camp before paheroth paiharoth between migdal and the Sea over against balzafone before it shall ye in Camp by the sea for Pharaoh will say of the children of Israel they are entangled in the land the Wilderness hath shut them in and I will harden Pharaoh's heart that he shall follow after them that I will be honored upon pharaoh and upon all his hosts that the Egyptians may know that I am the Lord and they did so so now they're they're sort of they're out of the state before the water and that's a that's the final frontier in some sense to get out of to get out of what's really Egypt but now they're also trapped so it gives the Pharaoh his last chance that seems right yeah he's going to pursue them like he's going to pursue them like he asked them to you know like he doesn't want to there's no room he doesn't want to leave room he's going to pursue them like he asked them to work non-stop no rest but now it's in space now it's in time he's going to get them all the way to the edge of the world and even try to cross over but right well on the edge of the world of the dry land and now they're at the chaos they're actually at the chaos in there so they're trapped between the Tyranny and the water and so that's when the Pharaoh can strike once yet once again a question for Dennis Dennis verse 4 I will harden the pharaoh's heart and and I will be honored to your point a few days ago Camp is is the etymological the verbal link there yeah it is that's the word the one the one I will make heavy or or honor even right okay okay and it was told the king of Egypt that the people fled and the Heart of pharaoh and his servants was turned against the people and they said why have we done this that we have let Israel go from serving us so to your point Dennis they've forgotten the whole firstborn thing already it's like oh yeah remember all our children died oh yeah well that was like yesterday man that ain't gonna happen again so and he made ready his chariot and took his people with him and he took 600 chosen chariots and all the Chariots of Egypt and captains over every one of them and the Lord hardened the heart of pharaoh king of Egypt and he pursued after the children of Israel and the children of Israel went out with a high hand what does that mean that they went out with a high hand is that because they were carrying treasure is it because they went out triumphantly anyone know I think it's the high hand of God oh do you yeah well well yeah yeah it does high-handed means arrogant so no uh Israel goes out with a high hand yes so well let's see the he so uh let's see by the way if that verse I think you're right Dennis because the next line says but the Egyptians Pursuit but the Egyptians pursued after them so despite the fact that yeah okay right but the Egyptians pursued after them all the horses and Chariots of pharaoh and his Horsemen and his army and overtook them in camping by the sea be beside p a heroth before Bell zefon and when Pharaoh Drew Nye the children of Israel lifted up their eyes and behold the Egyptians marched after them and they were sore afraid and the children of Israel Cried Out unto the Lord and they said unto Moses because there were no graves in Egypt so they weren't going to kill us in Egypt hast thou taken us away to die in the wilderness wherefore hast thou dealt thus with us to carry us forth out of Egypt is not the word that we did tell thee in Egypt saying leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians for it being better for us to serve thee in the to serve the Egyptians than that we should die in the wilderness seems like a reasonable objection at this point these were not Patrick Henry's people Give me liberty well they're also they don't have any arms and they're they go to their kids but there's a rough different the forgetfulness you're saying that the people of Egypt forget so easily the night before but it's like it was just yesterday or whatever that you know God delivered you from you know with the Passover right but now but but they're backed up against the ocean that's a problem they can't even Retreat and they have all their kids in their cattle and everything with them and so and now this horde of just men and soldiers come advancing forward like they have a reason I'm not justifying but they have reason to be shaky in their faith but I think definitely there is a way in which there's a the whole the whole subject of memory is there through the whole text and and you will and you see the difference for example so God says remember like here is the ritual remember this day know that this is your foundation the Pharaoh is constantly forgetting every single plague he just forgets forgets for gets forgets and now again you can't believe it his children are killed and and right away he forgets and he's ready he it's like he do the same thing over and over there's nothing so not only is he a tyrant he's impulsive right so he's not he's not even Bound by a coherent tyranny yeah he doesn't income he doesn't have the prophet so is god well yes I would say so I think God is an incoherent God because all gods prior to this one were capricious so when the Jews say oh what did he do take us take us out of Egypt in order to drown Us in the sea other Jews yeah that's the way God's work and Moses said unto the people fear not stand still and see the salvation of the Lord which he shall show you today for the Egyptians whom you have seen today ye shall see them again no more forever the Lord shall fight with you for you the Lord shall fight for you and you shall hold your peace and the Lord said unto Moses wherefore Christ thou unto me speak unto the children of Israel that they go forward but lift up thyroid and stretch out thine hand over the sea and divide it and the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea right that's a lovely phrase shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea so even though chaos is everywhere chaos is immediate and threatens with the risk of drowning the children of Israel those are who wrestle with God shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea that's that's different than escaping from tyranny even because now they're also being transported on dry ground through chaos itself well I mean the world exists through in chaos I mean even even the pre-cosmicondic idea right there are Waters above and Waters below and there's the world in between and so this this image is is slightly different but there's idea that there's waters on one side waters on the other and then that which is ordered in the center it is it is it is referring directly to Genesis and talking about this new creation which is happening right now that's why when the wind comes it's like hear the spirit of God and here's the here's the Earth coming out of the Sea The Waters get separated again it's the creation Motif and the Redemption Motif being interwoven just the two at the same time okay and I behold will harden the hearts of the Egyptians and they shall follow them and I will get me honor upon pharaoh and upon all his hosts upon his chariots and upon his Horsemen and the Egyptian shall know that I am the Lord when I have gotten me on or upon Pharaoh upon his chariots and upon his Horsemen so the Lord has now shown to be that which is triumphant even over the well-armed Tyrant well-armed and disciplined tyrant in this case because he has his Egyptian chariots and his soldiers and the angel of God which went before the camp of Israel removed the Hebrew for angel means messenger and just as the word for Prophet means spokesman just see it's worth knowing it's not necessarily a Celestial being and okay okay and the messenger of God the angel of God which went before the camp of Israel removed and went behind them and the pillar of cloud went from before their face and stood behind them and came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel and it was a cloud in darkness to them so why was it the pillar of the cloud so you have to understand that there's they're standing between two pillars just think of it that way it's like they're they Israel is standing between two pillars those two pillars are holding the the Egyptians away right so think about it in architectural terms right these two things that are holding up think about Cosmic pillars that are holding up the the heavens so because they're properly positioned between these two pillars they're also resistant that's a tyrant yeah okay okay so that well that's exactly what happens with this yin yang Motif in some sense if you're a center where it's meaningful you're immune to tyranny that is the thing that makes you immune to tyranny in fact it's because it's the only medication for tyranny and for chaos simultaneously so and weirdly it's the marking of the blood on the pillars of the door it's another threshold I think the two pillars that yeah I think we um it's not the world that changes right it's it's it's us that changed our vision that changes so you know it's in a certain sense you know it might be the same force that is the darkness of the light just as it's the same force that that kills and Spares I mean God's justice is not different from his Mercy right so it's it's it's the same fundamental reality perceived from different it might also be you know that that to stand between those two pillars if that's assimilated to the to the lintel with the blood on top is that there's there's this there's this every act that's meaningful has a sacrifice a sacrificial element in it because to be on that edge of learning let's say means you have to be willing to give up what you don't know all the time and so maybe there is a deep analogy between the the the lentils and the sacrificial blood and the the idea of being between the two columns what makes sense architecturally it's gone it's got to be a parallel but that's what I want to say like this might seem like because sometimes we we make these analogies and they they might seem like wild speculation but it's really important that the analogies are taken from the the text right so that's the repetition which makes you able to see the analogy so when I say the Israelites are protected from the Egyptians between two pillars a pillar of fire and a pillar of water and you're like okay okay Jonathan but then just when they leave when they cross the sea and they fight the amalekites the story is repeated now Moses stands in the middle and you have you have her and you have Joshua two pillars standing next to him holding his hands up so that they can win against the amalekites and so it's like and that will continue to repeat itself all through scripture this image of the church you know okay so by the fact that it's it's instantiated into a pattern that's repeated you know it's a reality yeah the racialization of something and when you see it repeated all through scripture then you can start to see how those repetitions coalesce towards a meaning so then when you look back now into the example you're like oh this is a repetition of this this this is not like something that was making up to make it sound poetic it's like this is that's actually that's actually rejoined her to the Sam Harris School of of biblical text yeah they're just making all this stuff up and just taking this from wherever but no no no well but the other thing you know too if you do anything like dream analysis say with with clinical clients you think well dreams what do you know you analyze them how do you know your analysis isn't just another dream and the answer to that often is well they strike them it's like you just can't utter a jumble of words and your client says well that's what the dream means they go like this there's like there's a revelatory quality if you strike the image right and we don't know what that consists of like how is it that you determine that the interpretation of something is correct part of what you're suggesting there is this moment of inspiration that people feel that's well studied in the psychological literature but you're also suggesting that we derive it by induction from a series of repetitions and that's what helps us determine whether something is anomalous or if it's an actual a valid interpretation that makes sense that makes sense well it also stitches together what is an invased library of texts right they're just and it gives it a unifying a unifying plot unifying structure right it wouldn't be attacked it wouldn't be a story if it didn't have some of that quality of repetition it would just be random aggregation of words even yeah yeah and then then it becomes kind of proleptic forward-looking when you re-read it the the symbols are freighted with anticipation of how they're going to be instantiated later on in the narrative right right well and you see I've seen pictures of the Bible cross-reference so like every verse is cross-referenced with like 40 other verses and so that that sense of repetition in some sense saturates the text the words the phrases the sentences everything I mean it's so much like you know when so so someone says that that he said tell the the the Israelites like have no fear either standing next to the water and the the the the the fair was coming it's like that's what Jesus said when he came into the water and walked on water and saw the the disciples freaking out so it's like every single word for example in the New Testament is taken directly from it's always taken from the Old Testament if you know the Old Testament all of a sudden the New Testament shines because it's like Jesus says something it's like he's also referring to this other thing that's bad it's not just just it's not just he obviously he did say that but he's so embedded in the all these stories that it you know I I never understand and you uh um I'm massively sympathetic to to Christianity especially in our time and I believe if if it fails we're all doomed so I just wanted to preface this question I don't understand when uh Christians give out Bibles and they will only give the New Testament do you agree with that question give the Jews a good whack oh is that is that the subtext well maybe that's part of just something about that Dennis because I mean Martian this uh figure in the second century is famously condemned as a heretic because he wanted to eliminate to get rid of the Old Testament and I think reduce and just just have you know 10 10 books in the New Testament and so I've never really thought of that the New Testament sometimes the Psalms get in which I Think Jesus Christ the sheer volume of the whole thing right it's just so too big yeah I try to read the Bible the people that are atheists and they come and they say I just open the Bible I never don't do that just open the Bible end up in Leviticus and read something and then there are challenges in every book yeah by the way didn't Luther want to get rid of um James James yes okay so we need to do something it works it works yeah isn't that amazing need to do something here because we're running out of time today I'm going to read to the end of 14. and then we'll be set up for tomorrow we'll go back because I don't want to skip over it but then we can finish with 14 and that'll be a nice ending point so and it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel and it was a cloud and darkness to them but it gave light by night to these so that the one came not near the other all the night and Moses stretched out his hand over the sea and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong East Wind all that night and made the sea dry land and the waters were divided Moses showing his Mastery over water once again and the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand and on their left and the Egyptians pursued and went in after them to the midst of the sea even all Pharaoh's horses his chariots and his Horsemen and it came to pass that in the morning watch the Lord looked under the host of Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud and troubled the host of the Egyptians and took off their chariot wheels that they draved them heavily so that the Egyptians said let us flee from the face of Israel for the Lord fighteth for them against the Egyptians and the Lord said unto Moses stretch out thine hand over the sea that the waters May Come Again upon the Egyptians upon their chariots and upon their Horsemen and Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea and the Sea returned to his strength when the morning appeared in the Egyptians fled against it and the Lord overthrew the Egyptians in the midst of the Sea and the waters returned and covered the Chariots and the horsemen and all the host of pharaoh that came into the sea after them there remained not so much as one of them but the children of Israel walked upon dry land in the midst of the sea and the waters were a wall unto them on the right hand and on their left thus the Lord saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the seashore and Israel saw that great work which the Lord did upon the Egyptians and the Moses and the people feared the Lord and believed the Lord and his servant Moses and that gentleman brings us to the end of Exodus 14 we'll pick up with the crossing of the Red Sea yesterday ah thank you all who are listening and watching and thanks once again to the Daily wire plus production team and that whole Enterprise for making this unlikely assemblage of whatever we are that are assembled possible take a noun Peterson thank you all very much [Music] [Applause] thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Applause] foreign

Channel: Jordan B Peterson 2023

Views: 18,081

Keywords: Jordan B. Peterson is a Canadian professor of psychology, clinical psychologist, YouTube personality, his podcasts, interviews

Id: 1gBIHHu5LYw

Length: 134min 5sec (8045 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 27 2023