Shalom Dalet Class!

Thank you for your good questions. They are especially important to think about as Passover is upon us and we tell the Exodus story at our seders.

First, I want to make clear, I did not say that the Exodus did not take place. I said that no archeological findings have ever been found to prove the Exodus story. Therefore, to believe in the Torah, as you describe, takes faith. Judaism has always spoken about Jews having faith starting with Abraham. The Bible is filled with stories about having faith and not having faith. One of the most famous examples of this occurs shortly after the Exodus story when the people of Israel lose faith in God and build a golden calf. I always find this story amazing.

Think about the scene: These Israelites have just witnessed, with their own eyes, plague after plague and then the miraculous splitting of the Red Sea. And even after experiencing these remarkable sights first hand, they lose their faith in a matter of weeks.

If even these Israelites can lose their faith, then I think the story teaches us a lot about the difficult challenge of having and keeping faith for the rest of us. This reminds me of Woody Allen’s line, "If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name at a Swiss bank."

More seriously, Rabbi Shlomo Riskin has written that while we often say seeing is believing, really, believing is seeing. In other words, what we believe will very much affect what we see. His insight would make a great discussion in your class.

Let’s say you cannot believe or see the Exodus story happening. I wrote in my earlier column that even if a Jew does not have faith that the Torah happened as it is written or that it happened at all, Judaism still has a huge system of values that a Jew can accept and believe in that are based on the Exodus story. You can certainly believe in the values even if you are not sure you believe in the story.

For example, many people do not believe that the world was created in seven days as described in the Torah. At the same time, they do accept the idea that we learn from the Torah, and that a single God created all humans in the image of God. From this idea we learn important values: that all humans have great worth, all humans deserve dignity and that all humans are fundamentally equal. These are Jewish values that a Jew can accept even if they think the seven day creation story is a fantasy.

After thousands of years of having wonderful Jewish values like these, I do not believe that these values are a "joke" based on fantasy, as you put it. These values are part of the "real story" of the Jews, even if we cannot prove scientifically that the Torah happened. Far from a joke, I believe Jews introduced many of these values to the world and in the process made the world a better place. I take tremendous pride in these values and in being a Jew. And I take pride in the Torah, too...even if I can't find evidence that our people walked through the desert.

I’ll leave you with two more stories from the Torah that would make good further classroom or seder discussions. Though we can't prove these happened, what values do we learn from: (1) Moses arguing with God to spare the Jews after the golden calf episode, and (2) Moses not being allowed into the Promised Land?

There are many other stories in the Torah that we seek to understand so we can derive values and rules to guide our lives. Many are complex and require much debate and study. I am glad some of this debate is happening in your class and thank you for including me in your discussions.

Happy Passover!

Gil