Isaac & His Sons   -   Joseph   -   Reunion   -   Moses   -   Ten Plagues 

 
We are continuing the story of the Jewish people, which at this point in our chronology is the story of a family, taking place in the 18^th century BCE or 3,700 years ago.

We have so far covered the story of Abraham, the first Jew, who took upon himself the mission of spreading monotheism throughout the world. And his family is going to carry on this mission -- to bring the idea of God into the world and re-elevate humanity back to its ideal state.

Abraham had two sons by two different wives. Ishmael with Hagar, the Egyptian, and Isaac with Sarah, his wife who was supposed to be barren. It is Isaac who elects to follow his father's mission.

We will not take the time here to go through stories of Isaac's life as this is not a Bible series per se. What we want to focus on is the patterns that a set for the rest of Jewish history, because as we noted earlier, "the actions of the fathers are assigned to the children."

The wheels of a wagon traveling on a dirt path -- or even on a stone road after a long-enough period of time -- make a groove or rut. And the problem with a rut is that once you get in it's hard to get out; we all know the expression "stuck in a rut." If you establish a good pattern, you stay in it. You establish a bad pattern, the same thing, it's hard to break.

Whatever groove Abraham or Isaac or Jacob are going to carve, for better or for worse, their descendants are going to get stuck in it.

Unless they take the trouble to fill in the grooves, put some asphalt down there, dig up the paving stones, put new ones in, which is a lot of work, they're going to be haunted by the early patterns throughout history.

RE-RUNS

One of the great patterns we see with Isaac is a re-run of a situation that Abraham also confronted. The Book of Genesis (chapters 20 and 21) relates that Abraham went to the land of the Philistines and he lived among them for a while. But he had some problems -- for example, they tried to take his wife, Sarah.

A few years later, (Genesis, chapter 26) Isaac faces the same situation. He's living amongst the Philistines somewhere on the coastal area of Israel and they try to take his wife, Rebecca. Also his servants start to have problems with the servants of Abimelech, the King of the Philistines.

And what happens eventually? The Philistines throw Isaac out, even though he's done nothing to deserve it as far as the Bible tells us. In addition, they plug up all the wells that Isaac has dug -- an illogical act given the value of water in the arid climate of the Middle East and the difficulty of digging wells. (This demonstrates an oft-repeated pattern of the anti-Semite who hurts himself in an effort to obliterate Jewish presence.)

But then something interesting happens -- Abimelech comes after Isaac and he says, "I see that we prospered because of you." Because once Isaac leaves, things go downhill for the Philistines. Their economy collapses. Nothing's going well, and the Philistines come to realize it's because of the Jews. So the king offers a treaty and asks Isaac to return.

This is the great pattern of Jewish interaction with non-Jews in history. The Jews are often invited in. The country does incredibly well because of their contribution. Then for no reason -- I'm aware of virtually no example in history of Jews ever doing anything that caused them to be hated the way we've been hated -- the country decides to throw the Jews out, undermining its own economy in the process. So the Jews are thrown out, the country suffers. This is what's going to happen over and over again. It's schizophrenia -- a love/hate relationship.

THE TWINS

Isaac is married to Rebecca. Rebecca is pregnant with twins, and the twins are fighting in the womb already -- it's a difficult pregnancy for Rebecca. When they're born there is a rivalry between them. And what are the twins' names? Jacob and Esau.

Although they are twins, Jacob and Esau have totally different personalities and they are also physically very different. The Bible describes Esau as hairy and Jacob as smooth-skinned. Esau is a hunter, a man of action. Jacob is a scholar; he's not a man of action.

It's also clear from the narrative that Isaac is favoring Esau who is the first-born of the twins. He's a couple of minutes older but that's significant when it comes to who will be the one to inherit the family mantle.

Rebecca is clearly favoring Jacob. The Bible says that women have binah yeserah, an added intuitive intelligence. Over and over again in the stories of the Bible, the men make the stupid mistakes, and the women do the right thing.

When Isaac is old, he decides to give each of his sons a blessing, and, of course, he wants to give an extra-special blessing to the first-born, Esau.

When a great man like an Isaac makes a blessing, that blessing affects spiritual forces and becomes a reality.

Although Esau doesn't really want the blessing of the first-born with all the responsibility to carry on his father's mission, he does want the blessing of wealth and power which goes along with it. But Rebecca realizes that the blessing has to go to Jacob as he is the one who is willing and able to change the world in the manner of Abraham.

So while Esau is off hunting to catch something for his father's dinner so he'll bless him, what does Rebecca do? She covers Jacob's arms with a goat skin so they will feel hairy like Esau's. And Isaac, who is blind, is fooled.

THE SYMBOLS

It's a mistake to read the Bible stories on a simplistic, first-grade Sunday school level. This is not the story of some old, blind man who's confused by his wife and son. There are very profound things going on here.

When Isaac encounters Jacob pretending to be Esau, he remarks:

"The voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau." (Genesis 27:22)

This is because the voice symbolizes the power of the intellect, and the hands symbolize the power of action, of might and of sword.

Esau, who embodies the power of might and sword, will, through his descendants, give rise to the Roman Empire or "Edom" as the Bible calls it. And, of course, it is the Romans (as in Roman Catholic Church) that converted the world to Christianity, the other great monotheistic faith. (Later there was a split between the Roman Christians and the Eastern Orthodox Christians, and later still the Protestant Christians split off.)

So, in Esau, we see yet another example of an offshoot of the children of Abraham, who, like Ishmael, does not carry on the mission, yet becomes a great power.

Very interesting pattern going on here. This is nothing less than a cosmic struggle. These two -- Jacob and Esau -- started fighting in utero, and they're going to be fighting throughout history. Later, these powers coalesce; Rome gives rise to the Western culture and it continues to fight the Jewish people.

It's not an even battle ever. Rome will always be stronger in the physical sense, but the Jews will be stronger in the intellectual, spiritual sense. So we see that this is where the struggle begins and it's going to carry on throughout all of history.

AMALEK

The descendants of Abraham can't help but be great; even if they don't become Jews they become people who have a huge impact on the world. Indeed, the greatest enemies of the Jews come from within the family.

Who is the ultimate enemy of the Jewish people in history? The nation of Amalek. This is the people that symbolize evil, and there is a commandment in the Bible to wipe them off the face of the earth, because their pathological hatred for Jews is so great, if they have a chance they will wipe the Jews off the face of the earth.

The nation of Amalek, the Bible tells us, comes into being when a son of Esau takes for a concubine a woman named Timna, who may have been his daughter. (See Genesis 36:10-12.) From this union came Amalek, the patriarch of a nation with a pathological hatred of the Jew.

Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, who wrote the chief work of the Kabbalah, the Zohar, some 2,000 years, said that "Esau hates Jacob is the way of the world." These are the laws of physics, so to speak, that describe the interaction between the Jews and descendants of Esau. No matter what happens, the descendants of Esau are going to hate the Jews.

So we have a confrontation between Esau and Jacob. Jacob steals the blessing and then Esau shows up and finds out what happened. And patriarch Isaac realizes that he's been tricked. He's not angry, however, because he sees now that Jacob is capable of action and can carry on the mission.

Now Rebecca, realizing that Esau's resentment will only grow until he going to want to kill his brother, sends Jacob away. She tells him to go to Haran where she tells Jacob to take a wife.

MR. WHITE

In Haran lives Laban -- Lavan, in Hebrew, meaning "white" -- Rebecca's ne'er-do-well brother. His name points up God's sense of humor -- Mr. White turns out to be one of the biggest crooks in the Bible. Jacob turns up penniless on his uncle's doorstep and falls in love with his cousin Rachel. He wants to marry her but Laban insists he work seven years for her hand. At the end of the seven years, Laban substitutes Rachel's older sister Leah and demands Jacob work another seven years to get Rachel. In the end, Jacob winds up with four wives -- Leah, Rachel, and their handmaidens Zilpah and Bilhah and he has 12 sons and 1 daughter.

Unlike previous generations, all the sons are going to be totally dedicated to the mission. They are the core group -- an extended family that is going to make the nation that is going to change the world.

Despite Laban's attempts to keep him dependent and working for peanuts, Jacob manages to accumulate a big fortune, which becomes another great pattern in Jewish history. The Jew with his hands tied behind his back, when given the slightest opportunity will do remarkably well, even in a very hostile business environment.

Jacob then realizes that he has to go back to the Land of Israel because he has a mission. Just as Abraham knew that this was the only place where Jewish potential could be realized, so too Jacob realizes that this is the only place to be. So he gathers up all his belongings and he heads back.

REUNION

And this brings us to another scene which becomes a powerful pattern in Jewish history. The re-uniting of Jacob and Esau.

As he makes his way home, Jacob hears that Esau is coming out to meet him with an army of 400 men. In response, always using his brains, he sends gifts.

They meet. Esau doesn't try and kill Jacob although it's very clear that he still hates him. He says, "My brother, it's good to have you back. You come with me to Har Sa'ir, where I live and we'll go into business together. With your brains and my brawn we'll dominate the whole Middle East."

There's no question, if these two had united as a team, what a force they would have had in human history. Imagine the physical power of the Romans linked with the spiritual and intellectual power of the Jews.

But Jacob says, "You go ahead of me. I'll catch up later." Now we know from the narrative Jacob never goes to Har Sa'ir to live with Esau.

The great biblical commentator Rashi explains, quoting the Prophet Ovadiah, that they will meet again -- at the end of days. In effect, Jacob, representing the great intellectual, spiritual force in human history, is saying to Esau, the great physical force: "I give you permission to go on ahead and dominate human history physically. But at the end of days, when the 'lion lies down with the lamb,' then we'll get together. Then the Jews will be on top."

This doesn't mean in the end Jews are going to conquer the world and make a great empire. In the end, the whole world will come to recognize one God and live with one standard of morality in peace and brotherhood. The Jewish mission will be fulfilled then, but in the meantime, Esau is going to be on top.

Ultimately the struggle of history will be between Jewish ideas and the ideas of Esau and the culture that he's going to create in human history. That's the cosmic battle: good versus evil. This is a very powerful idea and the dominating pattern of Jewish history.

Had Jacob married Rachel as he had intended -- instead of being tricked into marrying Leah -- Joseph would have likely been his first-born son. Although he was Jacob's 11^th son, he dominates the narrative of the 12 brothers, and, in his story, we see a great many historical patterns.

To begin with, Joseph has a key position in the family as a result of his being the long-awaited first child of Jacob's favorite wife. His father seems to be showing him a considerable amount of favoritism -- he buys him a special coat -- and this engenders jealousy from his brothers.

However, it would be a mistake to view their behavior simplistically, as typical of a dysfunctional family. While these people without a doubt make mistakes, spiritually they are on an incredibly high level. So we have to look deeply at what is really going on here.

Joseph is having dreams and he interprets those dreams. As we learn, he has a special gift for dream interpretation, and his dreams and interpretations are accurate and prophetic. He tells his brothers, for example, that one day they will bow to him (which does indeed happen some years later).

The brothers conclude that Joseph must be the bad apple in their generation and decide to get rid of him.

But to his brothers his dreams appear to verge on megalomania. And since they know that they are the team that's supposed to change the world, they think he is endangering the whole future of humanity. They know the family history -- that in each generation there was one "bad apple" -- first Ishmael, then Esau. So they conclude that Joseph must be the bad one in this generation.

They contemplate killing him, but instead they sell him into slavery. They take his fancy coat, smear it with goat's blood and present it to Jacob as if Joseph had been killed by a wild animal.

Meanwhile, Joseph is taken by a caravan of Ishmaelites to Egypt, where he becomes a slave in the household of a nobleman named Potiphar.

EGYPTIAN EMPIRE

At this juncture, we have to consider what Egypt was like at this time in history when it was the second of the two great civilizations in existence. (The first was the Mesopotamian civilization which we described in Part 3 of this series.)

Egypt at that time was mostly desert except for the Nile River. The Nile is the greatest river in the world, and if it didn't flow through Egypt the country would be just sand. In ancient times only 3% of Egypt was inhabitable, arable land.

Because of its natural defenses, Egypt was totally isolated and virtually impossible to invade. (The Hyksos, invaded it once, the Assyrians also, then finally Alexander the Great. But that's only three times in 3,000 years.) Egypt was the most static, longest-surviving civilization in human history. And it virtually didn't change. You think about how little Egypt changed in 3,000 years and how much the modern world has changed in even a few hundred years. It's mind-boggling how stable that society was and to a large extent it's due to its geography.

Although we don't have exact dates for the beginning of the Egyptian civilization, it is believed to have started in the Early Bronze period, around 3300 BCE. It was a very sophisticated culture, considering the feats of engineering that the pyramids represent. The Great Pyramid of Khufu, known as "Cheops," is the largest ever built, 13 acres in area, almost 500 feet high, of 5 million tons of stone; and it was built by people who did not have any iron tools. We have no idea how they did it. They obviously had tremendously sophisticated stone cutting techniques and engineering knowledge, enabling them to move large blocks of stone. They had pulleys, they had levers, they had a lot of muscle power.

It's estimated that Cheops took 100,000 men and thirty years to build. Why spend so much effort on building a tomb? Because the Egyptians were also spiritually sophisticated. It was a dark spirituality but not to be lightly dismissed. They were preoccupied with death, which is why they perfected mummification, and their holy book was called the Book of the Dead. How's that for a lively read?

They believed that Pharaoh was a living god, he had absolute power, and that Pharaoh's position in the after-life would affect how the whole of Egypt would do. So you had to make a really good tomb for him, and you had to give him the right gifts, and you had to make sure that he got into the after-life correctly, otherwise things would go badly for everybody. Which is why it was a national project of the entire Egyptian people to create such extra-ordinary tombs for the Pharaohs.

Of course, this very sophisticated culture was antithetical to Judaism as is humanly possible, because it practiced idolatry. They worshipped 2,000 different gods in ancient Egypt. Gods with hippo heads, and falcon heads, and crocodile heads. This was a civilization that was idolatrous to the extreme -- very religious and spiritual in its own sense and yet very idolatrous at the same time. They were not primitive or superstitious or stupid; they understood spiritual power and were a very sophisticated people who truly believed in the power of idolatry.

Egypt, besides being a place of idolatry, was also a place of immorality -- a very licentious place.

So to throw young Joseph into this environment is bad news. Very bad news.

A SLAVE RISES TO THE TOP

Separated from the influence of his family at an early age, Joseph has a major disadvantage for a licentious society -- he is very handsome. And his master's wife, Mrs. Potiphar, finds him very attractive.

Besides that, Joseph has a lot going for him -- he is very smart and hardworking and he rises from his position as lowly teenage servant to head of Potiphar's household. This is the classic historic pattern of the Jew in the Diaspora -- he comes in impoverished, deals with a bad situation, works hard, rises to the top.

Now Potiphar's wife is not happy that Joseph refuses her advances. Eventually, she picks a time when everyone is out of the house attending a national celebration and she tries to rip his clothes off. He runs away. She screams rape.

Mr. Potiphar comes home. It is obvious that he doesn't believe his wife because otherwise he would have Joseph killed on the spot. Instead, he throws him into prison.

So here Joseph, who was the head servant, is on the bottom again. This is the Jew in the Diaspora. We come into a country, we rise, then we're thrown out. We start at the bottom somewhere else. Joseph is now in prison and he rises very quickly to be the head prisoner. He's running the whole place. This again is the Jew.

Into prison is thrown Pharaoh's wine steward and Pharaoh's baker. And they have dreams. Now as we know Joseph is the master dream interpreter, and therefore it's not surprising that Joseph interprets these dreams and he tells the wine steward that the Pharaoh is going to reinstate him into his position, and he tells the baker that he's going to lose his head. And that's exactly what happens.

PHARAOH'S DREAMS

Then the Pharaoh himself has a couple of disturbing dreams. He dreams of seven fat cows coming out of the Nile and being devoured by seven thin cows. And then he has another dream of seven fat sheaves of wheat being devoured by seven thin sheaves of wheat. And he's very disturbed. And believe me, if living-god-on-earth-Pharaoh can't sleep, no one in Egypt sleeps.

The Pharaoh wakes up all his magicians and his soothsayers and his astrologers and none of them can figure out what the dream was about, and then the wine steward says, "I remember, there was this Jewish kid in prison who interprets dreams."

Now this, by the way, is the ultimate Jewish success story. They take Joseph out of prison; they shower him, shave him and bring him before Pharaoh. When he hears the dream, Joseph tells the Pharaoh: "There's going to be seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine."

"What should I do?" asks the Pharaoh. And Joseph says, "You'd better stockpile all the grain in Egypt so that when the famine hits you'll have what to eat." Pharaoh says, "You thought of it, you do it."

And this is how Joseph becomes Viceroy, for all practical purposes the most powerful man in the whole land in terms of infrastructure of Egypt, the most powerful empire at the time. How's that for promotion -- from prisoner to viceroy. And he marries -- Osnat, the daughter of Potiphar.

Before the famine hits he has two children, Menashe and Ephraim. To this day, observant Jews bless their children every Friday night to be like Ephraim and Menashe. Why? First, unlike all the previous brothers in the Bible -- Cain and Abel, Ishmael and Isaac, Jacob and Esau -- they love each other and are not jealous of each other's accomplishments. Second, because these kids grow up as sons of the Viceroy, they could have been totally assimilated, spoiled, Egyptian brats, yet it's very clear that they grow up completely loyal proto-Jews in an incredibly hostile environment.

Now that Joseph is Viceroy the stage is set for his early dreams to come true, when he saw his brothers bowing before him. And this is indeed what happens next.

An interesting thing happens in the Bible right in the middle of the Joseph story. Suddenly the story stops. We leave off Joseph and return to the land of Canaan to pick up the story of Judah, the fourth oldest of the 12 brothers. And it is not immediately clear why we need to be informed of this slice out of Judah's life at this point in the narrative. (See Book of Genesis, Chapter 38.)

We learn that Judah had three sons and the oldest married a woman named Tamar. He died. Then, according to Jewish law, the second son married Tamar. He also died. Tamar is in line to marry the third son, but Judah stalls. Realizing Judah will not honor the law, and seeing herself growing older and childless, Tamar decides to take the matters into her own hands.

As the Bible tells it, she disguises herself as a prostitute and seduces Judah, who promises her a goat in payment for her services. She holds onto his staff and seal as collateral, but when he arrives with the goat, the "prostitute" is nowhere to be found.

Shortly thereafter, it is discovered that Tamar is pregnant and she is sentenced to death for her promiscuity. Despite her situation, she does not embarrass Judah by revealing that he is the father of her unborn child. Instead, she sends the staff and seal with the request, "Please, recognize to whom this belongs."

These are the very words that Judah had spoken to his father Jacob, when -- after having sold Joseph into slavery -- he and his brothers took Joseph's coat and smeared it with the blood of a goat. They had claimed at the time that Joseph must have been devoured by wild animals.

With the words that remind him of his great sin echoing in his head, Judah confesses, "She is more righteous than I."

Through his admission of guilt, Judah becomes the first person in the Bible to accept responsibility willingly, thereby becoming the archetypal example of sincere and wholehearted repentance. In this he is the model Jewish leader, and the mantle of kingship will forever after belong to the tribe of Judah. His descendants will be King David and King Solomon, as well as the prophesied Messiah. Indeed, the Jews are called Jews after Judah.

The stage is now set for the repentance of the brothers and their reunion with Joseph.

THE FAMINE

Meanwhile, the famine hits. And it doesn't just affect Egypt but the entire ancient Middle East, and Egypt -- thanks to Joseph's foresight -- is the only place that has storehouses of grain.

Jacob sends the brothers shopping. But he keeps Benjamin, Joseph's full brother and the only surviving child of his favorite wife Rachel, at home, because he does not want to risk losing him.

The brothers arrive to Egypt. They bow before the Viceroy, not realizing that this is their long-lost brother whom they had sold into slavery. After all, Joseph dresses like an Egyptian, walks like an Egyptian, talks like an Egyptian.

Now Joseph realizes that through the generations, the family has created a rut of hatred among the brothers. And he realizes that it is time to get rid of that, and that the only way to do that is by repentance.

The Jewish way of repentance is that you find yourself in the same situation, but you don't repeat that mistake. You show that you've changed.

Joseph realizes that he now has a great chance to put his brothers back in the same situation.

THE TEST

So first, he accuses them of being spies. They insist they are not spies, they are just brothers of a family, that they have a father and a brother back home.

If that is true, says Joseph, go back and bring the other brother.

They are now starting to figure out that this is all happening to them because of what they did to Joseph. And now they have to bring Benjamin -- they know that if something happens to him, it's going to kill their father.

But Joseph insists and makes them go back and bring back Benjamin. Then he plants a silver cup in Benjamin's bag, and accuses them all of stealing. However, he offers to let the brothers go free and only punish Benjamin by taking him into slavery.

This is the test -- will they turn their backs on their brother to save themselves?

But they have become different people and they will not make the same mistake again. Judah argues passionately and offers himself into slavery in place of Benjamin.

With that Joseph starts to cry and reveals his true identity at last: "I am Joseph, is my father still alive?"

This is one of the great moments in the Bible as the brothers stare in shock at their long-lost brother, now an Egyptian Viceroy.

DIVINE PLAN

And then Joseph makes what is clearly one of the most significant statements in terms of understanding Jewish history:

"Now do not worry, and do not be angry with yourselves that you sold me here, for it was to preserve life that God sent me before you. For it is two years that there has been famine in the land; and for another five years there will be no plowing or harvest. God sent me here before you to insure your survival in the land to keep you alive for a great deliverance. It was not you that sent me here, but God and he made me as a father to Pharaoh and master of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt."(Genesis 45:5-8)

One of the greatest sayings of the rabbis which explains Jewish history is the idea of "God puts the cure before the disease."

At the beginning of these series, we discussed the idea of history as a controlled process with a goal. Our decisions make a difference but we're promised that we'll get our destined end. Therefore, regardless of what path we take, God will always make sure that His goals are met. He will put the pieces into place. Now as events are unfolding, we don't see where and how the pieces fit but when it's all over we can see everything had a reason.

Joseph, who was a very intelligent person with a tremendous faith in God, realized that his enslavement was part of a Divine plan, that he had to go to Egypt, because this was all part of this huge cosmic historical process.

JIGSAW PUZZLE

Jewish history is like a giant jigsaw puzzle. Six thousand pieces. Every piece is a year. And there is no box with the picture on the cover to let you see what it'll look like at the end? To get the first few pieces into place -- as Joseph is doing -- it takes enormous effort. But as you go further and further a couple of things happen: The picture comes together, everything begins to fit, there are no extraneous pieces, and the closer you get to the end, the easier it is.

That's human history and certainly Jewish history. Everything fits. There are no accidents. It all comes together. Everything has a purpose and when it's done you look back and see that it all makes sense, it all fits.

Joseph sees that. He sends word back to his father, and Jacob is overjoyed. He thought his son has been dead for all these years. And they have a dramatic reunion. All of Egypt comes out to see the Viceroy's family. And they are all bowing to Joseph in fulfillment of the prophecy.

Then the Pharaoh invites the whole family to come live in Egypt. And they do. The Bible says that 70 individuals entered Egypt consisting of Jacob, his 12 sons, their wives and children. The proto-Jewish nation arrived in Egypt.

And again, this is a great pattern of Jews arriving in a Diaspora country. They're welcomed in. They're given the best real estate in the land of Goshen. They settle there happily and prosper. Everything seems to be going great until the Egyptians see they are doing a little too well for comfort.

But when the Book of Genesis ends -- with the deaths of Jacob and Joseph -- everything is still okay. The problems are waiting to come in the Book of Exodus.

The Exodus story is certainly one of the most significant events in Jewish history. It is a model -- in microcosm -- for what happens later. We see again and again the roller-coaster ride from high points to low. Generally, the higher the Jews manage to rise, the lower they fall.

The story of Exodus recounts the Jews going from a good situation (as when they were welcomed into Egypt by the Pharaoh himself) to a very bad situation (when they were enslaved) to the highest heights, the pinnacles of spirituality (when they were freed from slavery by God Himself and given the Torah at Mount Sinai).

At the point in time when the Exodus story begins the family of 70 individuals that arrived in Egypt at the time of Joseph has grown to a nation of about 3 million people. This is not as far-fetched as it may seem. All you have to do is assume that each family had 12 children (as did Jacob and as is happening today in ultra-Orthodox families in Israel) and you can easily compute that in five generations there will be this many people if not more. This is far from the most supernatural thing to happen in Jewish history.

The rapid multiplication of the Jews has made the Egyptians nervous -- "there are too many of them, what if they rise up against us" -- and the Pharaoh issues a genocidal decree: Kill all the Jewish boys. (This is a classic anti-Semitic pattern -- the Jew in Diaspora is always loyal to his host country, yet can never escape unfounded suspicion of treachery.)

At this point, baby Moses is born. His parents decide to hide him, but after a few months they realize that very shortly they will be found out. So his mother, in order to save him somehow, puts him in a waterproof basket and floats it down the Nile. As we all know, he is saved by none other than the daughter of Pharaoh.

Irony of ironies? It's all part of the plan. As noted earlier, God puts the cure before the disease. This is another classic case.

It does give one pause though -- that the savior of the Jewish people is going to be raised in the house of the ultimate enemy of the Jews. The only modern equivalent would be of some fellow who is meant to overthrow Nazi Germany being raised as Adolf Hitler's adopted grandson. That's what we have here. You realize what a wild story this is if you imagine it in a modern context.

EGYPTIAN HISTORY

By the way, who is the Pharaoh in the story here?

The events of Exodus happened circa 1314-1313 BCE if we translate Jewish chronology into the Christian dating system the world uses today. But that may be misleading. For one thing, the Egyptian chronologies we use in modern world history have only been calculated in the last century by scholars who tried to estimate the reigns of the kings of Egypt and Assyria, two of the oldest empires in the world. There's a huge amount of educated guesswork involved in these chronologies. If you open any books on ancient Egypt you'll get lots of different opinions as to when different Pharaohs reigned.

Generally, the Pharaohs associated with the Exodus are Seti and Rameses. Rameses II was certainly the great builder of this period of time. And it's interesting that the Bible says that the Jewish slaves built the cities of Pitom and Ramses. (See Exodus 1:11.) Of course, it took them 116 years to build these cities so that covers the reign of more than one Pharaoh.

Now what's fascinating is that after Rameses there was a ten-year period of chaos in Egypt; this much we know from available records. This would fit if Egypt was, in fact, destroyed by ten supernatural plagues; they would be in bad state for a number of years afterwards. So there we have some evidence of it.

The Pharaoh who reigned after Rameses is named Merenptah and he ruled from the late 13th to early 12th century BCE. Now what's most interesting is that there was found an inscription from his reign which is today called the "Israel Stele." On that stele is a record of Merenptah's campaigning in the area of Canaan, the Sinai/Israel area. And it's the first extra-Biblical mention of "Israel" anywhere in human history. We're talking about something that's around 3,200 years old. And this would correspond in Jewish chronology to some time after the Exodus story.

What does the stele say? "Israel is a widow. Her seed is no more." That is, we've wiped out the Jewish people, they're gone. This means:

1) The Egyptians lie when they record things. Jews are here today 3,200 years later, they hardly wiped the Jews out; in fact, they're gone. (This is not surprising as the ancient people are notorious for lying in their official records to make their rulers look good.)

2) At this early time in history, corresponding to the time when the Jews just entered the Promised Land, we have concrete references to a people called Israel in the records of another country. This is very significant piece of archeology.

PRINCE OF EGYPT

Moses grows up as the grandson of Pharaoh, who is then (whoever he was) the most powerful human being on earth, being the ruler of the mightiest nation on earth.

Moses could easily have grown up to be a totally assimilated, totally spoilt Egyptian kid. But the Pharaoh's daughter has hired his own mother as his nanny and so he never loses the connection to the Jewish people.

It is no surprise therefore that, when one day he sees an Egyptian taskmaster beating a Jew, he cannot stand it and he kills the taskmaster. Then, of course, some Jews inform on him, which is another classic case we're going to see in Jewish history -- Jews informing on other Jews. And Moses has to flee for his life.

He goes to the land of Midian, which is across the Sinai Peninsula. There he meets Jethro, an excommunicated priest who has several daughters, one of whom Moses marries. His wife's name is Tzipporah, and the Bible describes her as being black. Moses has two sons, Gershon and Eliezer, (about whom we don't hear much) and he becomes a shepherd.

In this regard he follows the example of the other great leaders of the Jewish people; Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jacob's twelve sons were all shepherds. So, we have to ask: Why were so many Jewish leaders shepherds?

Now if you've ever watched shepherds at work, you might have noticed that most of them sit around doing nothing except daydreaming. A shepherd has a lot of time to think, and this is an absolute prerequisite for being a prophet. To elevate oneself to the highest level, where one transcends the physical reality and enters a higher dimension of communicating with the Infinite, requires a huge amount of work, and a lot of time to think.

Another reason why Jewish leaders were shepherds has to do with the fact that the work of a shepherd is practice for dealing with large groups of living creatures. Leading the Jews is the hardest job on the planet. One of the great lessons that we need to learn from Jewish history is the difficulty and the challenges of unifying and trying to lead the most individualistic nation on the earth. Being a shepherd is good practice for this daunting task.

THE BURNING BUSH

While Moses is tending the sheep, he has a vision of the burning bush.

The story of Moses' encounter with God at the burning bush is incredibly profound and laden with many deep meanings, but for our purposes in analyzing Jewish history we will consider the burning bush as synonymous with the Jewish people.

The burning bush is burning, but it is never consumed by fire. So, too, the Jewish people seem to be forever on the verge of being destroyed yet we always survive. On another level, we could say that the Jewish people are burning with the fire of Torah, with an ideology that is going to change the world.

When Moses encounters God at the burning bush, God identifies Himself repeatedly (Exodus 3:6, 3:13, 3:15, 3:16, 4:5) as the God of his forefathers -- Abraham, Isaac and Jacob with whom He had made an eternal covenant.

This is an extremely important passage because later on in Jewish history a lot of different people are going to come -- the Christians, for example -- claiming that God changed His mind, abandoned the Jews and made a new covenant (new "testament" to use the Greek term) with them.

But God made an "eternal" covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and He renews the deal at several intervals. We learn that God has a master plan for humanity and the Jews have an absolutely essential part in that plan.

At this juncture, God has decided to bring the Jews out of Egypt. And it's important to keep in mind that God put the Jews in Egypt in the first place -- that God is responsible for the bad things and good things that happen.

It says in the Talmud, you have to bless the bad as well as the good. When a person dies, the observant Jew will say "blessed is the true Judge," because everything God does is part of a plan, even though we don't always see what that is. Sometimes He puts people into a bad situation so they can accomplish their mission on earth. It's not just that the bad things are the product of "the devil" and the good things are from God.

So, in effect, we come to understand that Egypt served as a womb, where the Jews were formed as a nation in a very difficult situation, so that when they were ready, God could bring them out and establish a special relationship with them.

God tells this to Moses in effect and then commands, "Go back and tell Pharaoh to let My people go."

"LET MY PEOPLE GO"

As commanded, Moses goes back down to Egypt, confronts the Pharaoh with his brother Aaron, and he says, "The God of my forefathers told me to tell you: 'Let My people go.'" And in response, the Pharaoh is incredulous "What are you talking about? Who is this God? I don't know him."

The ancient Egyptians had around 2,000 gods. They took their spirituality and knowledge of the spiritual world very seriously. Since they didn't have a laptop to do a "god-search," their priests starting furiously flipping through their lists of the different gods and couldn't find the God that Moses was invoking.

The notion of one, infinite, all-powerful God was an idea that was incomprehensible to the ancient polytheistic people -- it simply did not fit with their fragmented way of viewing the world.

When the Pharoah won't listen, what does Moses do? He takes his staff and he throws it down and it turns into a snake.

The Pharaoh is not impressed. His magicians can do the same thing.

It is very important to stress that the ancient world understood spirituality in the way we cannot even fathom today. Today we talk about magic, but magic for us is illusion, not a manipulation of the forces of nature as they were able to do.

It is a fundamental idea of Judaism that there's a spiritual reality, and that there's a physical reality. You can transcend the physical into the spiritual; you can use the spiritual to manipulate the physical. And you can do this by accessing the dark forces or the light forces. And the Egyptians were able to access the dark forces and they knew how to turn a stick into a snake, so they were not impressed by what Moses did.

But Moses was just getting started.

Once the plagues hit Egypt -- blood, lice, frogs, etc. -- the devastation continues for over a year. Each plague is an open miracle, because each one represents a fantastic manipulation of nature. The laws of nature are turned upside down to help the Jews.

Open miracles are a very important part of early Jewish history. After the destruction of the First Temple they're going to cease, although arguably the Jews couldn't have survived this long without continual hidden miracles.

The obvious question we must ask when we examine The Plagues is why? Why did God choose to set the Jewish people free through this very long, drawn-out process? If He wanted, God, an all-powerful being that He is, could have made all the Egyptians drop dead on the first encounter with Moses, or He could have frozen them in place, then all the Jews could have packed up and left in five minutes.

To explain why the Ten Plagues had to be, we need to first explain the Jewish view of miracles in general.

Judaism holds that nature does not act independently of God, but, at the same time, God created the laws of nature and does not interfere with them. God is certainly capable of doing whatever He likes, but He doesn't play around with the physical world and its workings. Therefore, most miracles are natural phenomena with awesomely good timing.

But to this rule, the Ten Plagues are a notable exception.

A TOTAL EXCEPTION

Unlike the Ten Plagues, the splitting of the Red Sea or Reed Sea -- Yam Suf -- could be explained as a natural event with great timing.

Several years ago two oceanographers documented that every 2,500 years or so the right combination of winds and tide will cause the ocean to split over the area of the Red Sea today. Unlike the movie version, where the Red Sea splits in a matter of minutes, the Bible story relates a lengthy process -- just as documented -- of the wind blowing all night and by the morning there's a dry place to walk through.

Napoleon, 200 years ago, witnessed a similar phenomenon.

Can you imagine if that happened to you? Right at the time you needed to cross a body of water it splits for you overnight. If an event that occurs statistically once every 2,500 years happened for you, just when you needed it, you wouldn't say, "Ah, that's a good, interesting combination of winds and tides." You'd say, "Oh my God, a miracle!" That's what's happening in most cases of miracles in the Bible.

However, there is no natural explanation for the Ten Plagues. The Ten Plagues are a clear example of God flipping the laws of nature on its end.

We have hail -- which should be frozen -- that is on fire; we have darkness so dense that no one can see or move; things that happened to Egyptians not happening to Jews. All supernatural stuff. Why? Here is the reason:

The whole essence of idolatry is the belief that every force in nature has a god that controls it. In Egypt they worshipped the Nile god, the sun god, the cat god, the sheep god, etc. The Ten Plagues were designed by God to flip all the laws of nature on end to demonstrate -- not just for the Jewish people but for all of humanity, for all of history -- that He alone controls all of nature, all of the physical world, and that there is nothing outside of His control.

If we examine the plagues carefully we can readily see that each one was designed to show God's control of all forces in nature: water and earth, fire and ice, insects, reptiles and mammals, light and darkness, and finally, life and death.

ARCHEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE

Do we have evidence for the Ten Plagues in archeological records?

As noted in the last installment in this series there is recorded a ten-year period in Egyptian history (right around this time) when chaos reigned. There are other oblique references, the most famous being the Ipuwer Papyrus. This is actually a series of papyri, which describe various cataclysmic events in Egypt -- blood everywhere, people dying etc.

Immanuel Velikovsky uses the Ipuwer Papyrus as the basis for his book, Worlds in Collision, in which he argues that the whole Exodus story is true, but that the plagues happened because a comet came close to the earth. He says the dust from the comet turned the water red, and the pull of the comet's gravitational field split the sea, etc.

However, if you read the Bible, you see that with the plague of blood, it's not just water turning a "dusty red." The Midrash also tells us that Egyptians perish from this bloody water but not the Jews.

Despite that, there is an amazing amount of resistance on the part of the Egyptians -- not just the Pharaoh, but the whole of Egypt -- to let the Jews leave. It is classic anti-Semitism, "I don't care if I take my whole country down as long as I can take the Jews with me."

This actually is a very common historical pattern. You'll see this certainly when we get to Hitler -- they needed the trains to supply the Eastern Front, but they diverted them to ship Jews to Auschwitz. They were losing the war, but their main energy still went, not to win, not to even save themselves, but to kill the Jews.

Finally, finally, after the death of the first-born, the Pharaoh says, "Go!"

The Jews leave, the sea splits, the Egyptians follow and they drown. That's the final great event until ... Mount Sinai.