This week the Jewish people is not just celebrating, but reenacting the exodus from Egypt

that our ancestors undertook many generations ago. The highly curated, ritualized retelling of this

story can be found in the Hagada, the compiled text that

structures the Pesach holidays, ceremonial meal, and its satyr. But of course, the defining telling of

this story is to be found in the book of Exodus itself. Welcome to the Tikva podcast. I'm your host,

Jonathan Silver. In 2021, the great Leon Kass

published a searching, capacious commentary on the book called Founding God's Nation, Reading Exodus.

Not long after that, I had the honor of sitting down to record an entire video course with him,

consisting of eight roughly hour-long

episodes. Each one focuses on a different dimension of his commentary, and this week we're bringing

you the audio version of episode two, focusing on the national narrative created in the text.

We discuss the character of Moses, the nature of Egypt, the purpose of the

plagues, and the essence of awe and reverence, all against the backdrop of the Exodus's

three defining aspects, the promulgation of a national story, a law to structure society,

and an elevated national aspiration that provides the people

with a mission. If you like this conversation, I invite you to enroll absolutely free of cost

in Leon Cass' entire video course at courses.tikva.org. That's courses.tikva.org. There you will find other free, full-length,

online courses on everything from Theodore Herzl to the New York intellectuals to medieval

Jewish history. Scroll down to the Hebrew Bible section of the page, and there, along with

studies of the artistic legacy of the Hebrew Bible

with Jacob Weiss and the Book of Job with Mika Goodman, you will find founding God's

nation reading Exodus, and its wonderful instructor, Leon Cass. You can subscribe to the

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