Founding God's Nation

November 9, 2020
Kass, professor emeritus of Social Thought at the University of Chicago, follows up his book on Genesis, The Beginning of Wisdom, with this exploration of Exodus’s “teachings regarding a worthy life for an individual and a community.” Kass argues Exodus is “the foundational political text” of Western civilization, and of the three stories he examines—divine revelation, Moses’s life, and the “process of people formation”—it is the last that produces what Kass sees as the three pillars of the Jewish people: slavery and exodus, covenanting and law, and ritual enactment. Taking a line-by-line approach, the analysis will be accessible even to those unfamiliar with Exodus, as Kass argues this pivotal book of the Hebrew Bible allowed for original ways to conceptualize the building of a nation that still resonate today. However, having been invited to explore universal questions, many readers may struggle with Kass’s answers, both in the conclusions and lessons he sees reflected in Exodus: that “the condition of slavery generally produces ‘slavish people’ who have no taste for freedom,” that atheism dehumanizes and endangers humanity, or that shared history and identity is vital for a nation to flourish. Despite this, general readers interested in the Hebrew Bible will get much from Kass’s trenchant work.

December 4, 2020

In this follow-up to The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis, Kass (emeritus, social thought, Univ. of Chicago) maintains that a major theme of the Book of Exodus is God's forging a confederation of families within the Nation of Israel. A national identity requires a common history, provided in the story of God's deliverance of Israel. Following a shared story is a set of communal values as found in the Torah. Finally, a nation needs to be oriented to something beyond itself, which Kass locates in the theophany at Sinai and instructions for the Tabernacle. The author states that in this time of national strife, Exodus is a blueprint for national unity that is accessible for everyone, including atheists. Perhaps so, but his interpretive decisions might give biblical scholars pause. Rather than parsing out sources, Kass reads Exodus as a single, tightly composed work with no attempt to locate the original audience. Are we to imagine Exodus to be very early or much later? If later, would not Exodus be an idealized history, giving no indication of what actually forged an enslaved people into that unique nation that continues to flourish after so many others have fallen forgotten? VERDICT Primarily for readers seeking a conclusion to the author's previous work.--James Wetherbee, Wingate Univ. Libs., NC

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December 15, 2020
As a young man absorbed in biological science, Kass saw only primitive superstition in the Hebrew Bible. But as readers have already learned from his earlier commentary on Genesis (The Beginning of Wisdom, 2003), later life engendered in him a deep appreciation for Judaism's sacred texts. In this sequel, readers see how much Exodus, the second book of the Torah, has taught him both about large-scale questions of political philosophy and about the intensely personal cravings of the individual spirit. Approaching the text in the spirit of pensive philosophy, Kass explicates scripture verse by verse, illuminating the way the factious tribal family of Jacob (Israel) acquires a new collective identity as a people, a nation forged by a shared narrative of miraculous deliverance from slavery, a shared moral code revealed at Sinai, and, finally, a shared holy place for worship. Parsing the instructions for constructing that holy place--the Tabernacle, or Tent of the Congregation--Kass teases out of what he once dismissed as tedious priestly minutiae stirring intimations of what the human spirit experiences in approaching the divine. In his epilogue, Kass draws from Exodus' record of the founding of Judaism timely--even urgent--universal lessons about twenty-first-century preconditions for human flourishing in any community. Compelling modern reflections on ancient wisdom.

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March 15, 2021
Expansive commentary on the book of Exodus. Humanist scholar Kass, who has spent much of his life studying the Hebrew Bible, follows up The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (2003) with this exploration of Exodus. In these massively important scriptural passages, Kass sees a primary document about "people formation, freedom and order, law and morality, the leader and the led." The story follows the Hebrew slaves as they are led out of Egypt, under the leadership of Moses, to Mount Sinai, where they received the law that, in many ways, formed the basis of Judaism as we know it. As such, Exodus is not merely a foundational book of history and ethics, but also a work of political philosophy. Indeed, Kass argues that the text must be read "philosophically," meaning with a view toward gaining wisdom, as one would read any other prominent work of antiquity. His commentary, therefore, is not an academic study exploring the text line by line, nor a religious investigation seeking divine revelation. Instead, Kass meticulously examines the text with the goal of discovering new truths; these may or may not be religious, but they have lessons for any society as it develops. Throughout, the author uncovers intriguingly political angles to age-old biblical tales. For instance, as Moses and Aaron first approach Pharaoh with their demands, Kass sees the encounter as a moment of failed diplomacy. Kass also offers lesser-known or even radical interpretations of Scripture. For instance, he reads the story of the golden calf not as a simple example of disobedience but as a moment orchestrated by God, allowing an opportunity for collective sin. "The Israelites' first true act of national freedom," he writes, "was their disobedient demand that Aaron make them gods." This act, writes Kass, helped shape a formally servile peoples' sense of freedom of will. Kass delivers another thought-provoking volume about a seminal work of Scripture.

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