Memory is not the retrieval of facts from a filing cabinet. Memory is how we recall facts colored by experience. Judaism is a religion built around the veneration of memory. The Exodus story is a seemingly fantastical memory of a people’s liberation. How we recall that history can shape our future, moving us toward freedom or oppression.
What you experience is not necessarily what you remember. Daniel Kahneman famously wrote that “the remembering self is a storyteller, not a witness.” He also observed, “We do not choose between experiences. We choose between memories of experiences.”
Civilizations collapse
The telling of the Exodus from Egypt is an example of memory supplanting history. For example, Dr. Eric Cline of George Washington University writes that the Exodus story was part of the collapse of civilization around 1177 BC. He argues that the Hebrews may have migrated during a period of civilizational breakdown, when nations were collapsing due to famine, climate shifts, disease, economic failure, and mass displacement. In Cline’s retelling, a particular people living under Egyptian rule likely went to the Levant and told a story of liberation.
What matters for us is not the exactitude of the Exodus story. The Torah is not a history book. Our memory of liberation should compel us to expand freedom for all people, everywhere. Our Sabbath evening prayers and Passover seders recall our transition from slavery to freedom. Liberty is fundamental to Jewish thought, grounded in memory—rooted in history, but not constrained by it.
Freedom is Bounded
Freedom is not unbound; it is constrained by responsibility. That is why the Exodus story is immediately followed by the giving of the law at Sinai. The sovereignty to act, whether on an individual or national level, must always be bound by adherence to laws that protect each person. My rights are limited by my respect for yours. Simply put, we do not oppress, steal from, or harm one another.
America also has a memory of liberation. The thirteen colonies cast off British rule to protect life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The founders shaped their words and deeds around a remembered liberation story.
Rewriting American History
Yet nefarious forces now leading our nation have constructed a new memory. The MAGA narrative retells American history as if this were a Christian nation, stripped of Jesus’ adaptation of the Jewish value to love one’s neighbor as one would be loved. This administration would apply whiteout to a checkered American history. The past has been distorted, not into memory but into propaganda.
In Torah’s language, a new Pharaoh has arisen who does not know George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Eleanor Roosevelt, or Martin Luther King, Jr. Our Pharaoh ignores the plagues of imperial oppression, social upheaval, environmental stress, and the battle over dwindling resources.
Exodus may be understood as a foundational national myth for both the Jewish people and the United States of America. That memory should move us to end oppression, welcome the immigrant, and confront the environmental changes that threaten our continued existence on this planet. To succeed, we must remember our past so that we can confront any modern-day Pharaoh.
Rabbi Evan J. Krame
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