tradition (which is a product of oblivion and memory)--Jorge Luis Borges The exodus from Egypt is a focal point of ancient Israelite religion. Virtually every kind of religious literature in the Hebrew Bible--prose narrative, liturgical poetry, didactic prose, and prophecy--celebrates the exodus as a foundational event. (1) Israelite ritual, law, and ethics are often grounded in the precedent and memory of the exodus. In the Decalogue, Yahweh identifies himself as the one "who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage" (Exod 20:2 = Deut 5:6). In the covenantal language of this passage and many others, the deliverance from Egypt is the main historical warrant for the religious bond between Yahweh and Israel; it is the gracious act of the great lord for his people on which rests the superstructure of Israelite belief and practice. In some texts (and featured prominently in the Passover Haggadah), the historical distance of the exodus event is drawn into the present by the elastic quality of genealogical time: "You shall tell your son on that day, 'It is because of what Yahweh did for me when he brought me out of Egypt'" (Exod 13:8; cf. Deut 6:20-25). In its existential actuality, the exodus, more than any other event of the Hebrew Bible, embodies William Faulkner's adage: "The past is never dead. It's not even past." (2)
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