There is thus
every indication in Exodus that freedom will involve a long journey. It is fair
to say, thirty-three centuries later, that we have still not arrived at the
destination. But freedom is not a blind journey, a road without a map. The
destination is clearly signalled, though it lies beyond the horizon. It is the
promised land, flowing with milk and honey, the land Moses spent his life
leading his people towards but was not privileged himself to enter. One of the
underlying themes of the book was best stated in a later age by Rabbi Tarfon:
“It is not for you to complete the task but neither are you
free to desist from it.”
The path
to freedom is travelled one step, one generation, one era at a time, never
losing heart or forgetting our aim. The key to Exodus politics, as it is to
Judaism as a whole, is what elsewhere I have called “Utopia now.” That is
the significance of Shabbat, whose presence looms large in the book. It was the
first commandment the Israelites received in the wilderness. It holds a pivotal
place in the ten commandments. It is repeated immediately before and after the
episode of the Golden Calf. It is central to the politics of freedom. On
Shabbat we rehearse utopia, or what Judaism came later to call the messianic
age. One day in seven, all hierarchies of power are suspended. There are no
masters and slaves, employers and employees. Even domestic animals cannot be
made to work. We are not allowed to exercise control over other forms of life,
or even forces of nature. On Shabbat, within the covenantal society, all are
equal and all are free. It is the supreme antithesis of Egypt.
Jonathan
Sacks, Covenant and Conversation Exodus: The Book of
Redemption, 13-14 (Maggid
Books 2010).
