Thoughts on Exodus

Schematic depiction of the Iron Dome System

This week I have Pesach on my mind, more to the point I am preoccupied with the kibbutz Pesach Seder. As usual I am entrusted with the seating arrangements for the kibbutz Seder. Fitting several hundred people into the communal dining room with the aid of computer aided drafting software is a relatively easy task. However, accommodating special needs and satisfying individual requests requires ingenuity and a few low-tech hands-on adjustments.

At this moment similar Seder placement puzzles are being solved all over Israel. I'm sure other seating planners are also making final adjustments to their floor plans so that the member with the gammy knee, the obese aunt from Ramat Gan and the mothers with carriages and strollers will all be seated by an aisle or an exit.

This year the recent Gaza flare-up has caused preparations for Pesach to be especially defence related. During the heightening exchanges between the rocket firing teams in Gaza and the IDF some observers warned that the escalating violent exchanges could easily develop into a full scale offensive. The Iron Dome’s successful interception of Grad rockets fired from the Gaza Strip at Ashkelon and Beer Sheva and the subsequent detection and annihilation of the teams that fired the rockets seemed to have a deterrent effect, or so we thought. The Gaza terrorist groups then tried using a new addition to their weapons arsenal, the Kornet anti-tank missile. When the first Kornet missed hitting an IDF armoured vehicle another team fired at an Israeli school bus causing light injuries to the driver and seriously injuring a 16 year old passenger Incidents involving casualties tend to aggravate the already tense atmosphere and further escalate hostilities. However, contrary to expectations the situation didn't get out of hand. The IDF retaliatory actions were fierce and caused the Hamas leadership to call for a ceasefire.

Given the initial reluctance of both sides to upgrade the confrontation to the campaign level, especially now so close to Pesach, an understood cessation of hostilities is in effect.

The two Iron Dome units have become quite a tourist attraction. Now that the situation in the south has calmed somewhat people from all over Israel have been visiting the teams operating the two units. Posing for photographs and being plied with refreshments brought by the visitors has become part of the new heroes’ daily routine.

Criticism of the Iron Dome System has been levelled mainly at the high cost of the interceptors and the limitations of its response in the face of a large barrage of Grad rockets. One critic claimed that the recent volley of rockets fired at Ashkelon and Beer Sheva was intended by Hamas to test the system's response in order to prepare for a major barrage in the future.

Since the uprising in Egypt, the Gaza Strip's border with Egypt is less of an obstacle. Smuggling of armaments and goods continues unhampered by the Egyptian border police. The political atmosphere in Egypt has changed. Calls by opposition groups for improved relations with Iran and Syria and the consequent worsening of relations with Israel worry us and please Hamas.

The worsening situation in Syria also worries us. "Israel fears the alternative if Syria's Assad falls," reasoned Los Angeles Times correspondent Edmund Sanders in a recent report from Jerusalem. Sanders failed to get a response from the tight-lipped Israeli government spokespersons or even from our eager for photo-op cabinet ministers. He said they fear any official comment would be counter productive given the strong anti-Israel sentiments in the Arab world. Expounding further Saunders said that although Syria is one of Israel's strongest enemies, it has nevertheless been predictable and relatively stable.

He did however manage to get a brief comment from Maj. Gen. Amos Gilad, the Defence Ministry's policy director "Officially it's better to avoid any reaction and watch the situation," Gilad said. Maybe it was wishful thinking when he predicted Assad's regime would survive the present unrest. An opinion to the contrary was expressed by a leading Israeli Arab affairs analyst who predicted that if the demonstrations in Syria spread to Homs and Damascus Assad’s regime would collapse. “Privately, Israeli officials confirmed that although Assad is no friend, he's probably better than the immediate alternatives, which could include civil war, an Iraq-style insurgency or an Islamist takeover by the Muslim Brotherhood.” Said Saunders.
Today, ahead of Pesach 50,000 Israelis boarded flights to a variety of overseas destinations. In all about half a million Israelis are expected to leave the country over the Pesach week. There is a proportionately smaller influx of Jews coming to Israel for Pesach.

It’s about this time that the trivial details associated with Pesach appear in the narrow columns of the inner pages of our newspapers. How many tons of matzot , gefilte fish and other culinary delights will be consumed next week. Some columnists will translate everything into calories and suggest how we can shed the extra pounds once we return to our normal routine.

Our minority communities often feature in these news items. Restaurants in Nazareth, Osfia, Dalyat el Carmel and other towns will do well serving Jewish customers seeking gastronomic respite. This year I was surprised to learn that supermarkets in our minority communities stock up on matzot well ahead of Pesach. It seems Arabs have developed a taste for our unleavened bread.

It’s about this time of the year that I recycle doubts concerning the Exodus.

Usually I quote Professor Israel Finkelstein’s difficulty in accommodating the Exodus narrative with archaeological findings. Finkelstein and others are an accepted part of the academic landscape in Israel. Their views are shared by many and attacked by others.

A similar opinion is held not by Finklestein’s fellow archeologists but by Rabbi David Wolpe of Sinai Temple, Los Angeles, widely recognised as a leader of the Conservative movement.

Ten years ago Rabbi Wolpe became the focus of international controversy when he gave a Passover sermon that discussed the historic validity of the Exodus from Egypt. He told his congregation that "the way the Bible describes the Exodus is not the way it happened, if it happened at all." Casting doubt on the historicity of the Exodus during the holiday that commemorates it brought condemnation from members of the congregation and several rabbis (especially Orthodox Rabbis). The ensuing theological debate included whole issues of Jewish newspapers such as the Jewish Journal in Los Angeles and editorials in The Jerusalem Post, as well as an article in the Los Angeles Times. Critics asserted that Wolpe was attacking Jewish oral history , the significance of Passover and even the First Commandment.

Rabbi Wolpe asserted that he was arguing that the historicity of the events should not matter, since he believes faith is not determined by the same criteria as empirical truth. Wolpe argues that his views are based on the fact that no archeological digs have produced evidence of the Jews wandering the Sinai Desert for forty years, and that excavations in Israel consistently show settlement patterns at variance with the Biblical account of a sudden influx of Jews from Egypt.

David Wolpe says, “some people are surprised, even upset, by these views. Yet they are not new; such views have been a staple of scholarship, even appearing in popular magazines, for many years. Not piety but timidity keeps many rabbis from expressing what they have long understood to be true. As a scholar who took me to task in print told me privately over lunch, ‘Of course what you say is true, but we should not say it publicly.’ In other words, tell the truth, but not when too many people will be listening.

Chag Sameach

Beni 14^th of April, 2011.