In the mid 1990s a colleague of mine from Los Angeles, Rabbi David Wolpe, delivered a sermon on the first day of Pesach in which he said that in all probability the exodus from Egypt of the children of Israel never actually took place. There is simply not one shred of evidence from archeology in the entire Sinai Desert between Egypt and ancient Canaan that the children of Israel marched through those parts. Nor is there any testimony in the Egyptian records any children of Israel being enslaved and escaping under duress. That sermon by Rabbi Wolpe stirred up a furor. Its thesis appeared widely both in the Jewish press and in secular newspapers, starting with the Los Angeles Times. Its thesis still reverberates. One can watch the Discovery channel today and see the same argument.
The debate not only elicited accusations of disbelief about Rabbi Wolpe but more general accusations that this was what the Conservative Movement produced . heresy and epikorsus. In a more sophisticated responses, it stimulated opposite arguments. Some of those went like this. Well, archeology is far from an exact science. Well, maybe the evidence was lost in the sands of Sinai. Well, there is no record of this even in Egypt because ancient kingdoms aside from Israel, did not like to preserve in their records defeats and low moments in history. After all, claimed Rabbi Ken Spiro from the popular website Aish.com, .The British Museum in London displays inscriptions from the walls of the palace of the Assyrian Emperor Sancheriv. These show scenes from Sancheriv.s military campaigns from the 8th century BCE. There are graphic depictions of destroyed enemies . decapitations, impalings. One element is missing from these inscriptions: there are no dead Assyrians! That is consistent with the ancient historical style . negative events, failures and flaws are not depicted at all!. So that the fact that the Egyptians themselves did not record the exodus from Egypt of the children of Israel is because the Egyptians did not want to preserve details of defeat at the hands of slaves, let alone the death of Pharaoh and the entire Egyptian army at the Red Sea.
So now we come to the Haggadah that we read last night at out seder. "Avadim Hayeen L'Pharoh B'mitrayim". "We were slaves in Egypt to Pharaoh". A slight diversion into Hebrew grammar. Should one instead rephrase that core statement as a question? How would one do that? There are no question marks or periods in Ancient Hebrew. By adding the Hebrew phrase "Ha'im" to any sentence it becomes a question. "Ani Eish". "I am a man" becomes "Ha'im Ani Eish". "Am I a man?" So perhaps the phrase "Avadim Hayeenu". "We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt" should really read "Ha'im Avadim Hayeenu?". "Were we slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt?" And what of those five rabbis sitting in Bnai Brak through the whole nigh talking about the Exodus from Egypt? Should they have retired to sleep at a more reasonable hour?
I can tell you how I personally solve this problem, and still "keep my faith," so to speak. By accepting that history and truth are two separate spheres: that memory is more than reality. History tries to establish the reality. Memory establishes the truth. Or to put it in a different way, the truth of history and the truth of memory can be separate facts. If my memory tells me that the exodus is true that "Avadim Hayeenu". "we were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt" then that is the truth regardless of the historical reality which anyway is ambiguous. Our memory commands us to celebrate the Seder as we eat and pray our way through our slavery. That memory truth is sufficient to keep me away from a bagel or pizza or pasta for eight days because my ancestors in my memory were enslaved and liberated.
I hear you saying "but don't we want to know the truth of history?" Of course we do. But, as in personal life, the truth which causes us to act, and which shapes us, is as much memory as it is reality. Let me give you an analogy in your own family, as you sat around the Seder table, how truth of memory is different from truth of history. How many of our families have the memory of parents and grandparents who were frugal and saved and enabled us to achieve what we have in our comfortable environment. How many of us remember our families working hard and saving for our education. But how frequently have we pushed into the recesses of our mind the fact of an uncle or that grandparent who was a spend thrift, who was a bookie, who was a drunk, who was a gambler, and did not fit into this family memory? But it is that collective family memory, regardless of the historical truth, which impacts and shapes our family memory.
And another example of memory shaping a prominent family, if not the factual history of that family. I refer to the Manishewitz family, the descendants of Ber Manishewitz who opened up a Cincinatti bakery in 1888 which grew into the widespread kosher food sold at Pesach through that company. The family sold the company nearly twenty years ago. The current descendants of Manishewitz celebrate Passover quietly at home just like any Jewish family. Many in today.s Manishewitz family found their surname when they grew up annoying and embarrassing, this according to a 2008 book by author Alpern Kald, "Manishewitz - the Matzah family - the making of an American Icon." The connotation to sweet wine licensed by the company annoyed them. One descendant Ofra Tarrnett even said, "People always ask me if my feet were purple from stomping on the grapes." That memory oppressed many in the family even though the actual history of the family was noble and richer. American Jewish Historian Jonathan Sarna, who wrote the introduction to the book, credits the "Iconic" Manishewitz clan as helping devout immigrants succeed without having to sacrifice their religious traditions. This was a marked difference from those who had assimilated before them. He said "The image was, if you wanted to make it in America you had to abandon these rituals, you couldn.t be too Jewish, you had to Americanize. Suddenly - with Manishewitz - here was this company that becomes a major company in its legitimacy, certainly in the early years, was tied in with the fact that they were Orthodox." But that is not what many of the descendants of Manishewitz recall. Their memory was not that historical contribution but the sense of embarrassment. The truth of memory and the truth of history are separate and apart.
I would hope that someday some remnants of B'nai Yisrael exiting from Egypt will be found in the Sinai Desert, so that truth and memory coincide. But until that time, I subscribe to the truth, "Avidim Hayeenu L'Pharoah B'mitzrayim."