exodus as a theme in
american history and culture
Rabbi Lance J. Sussman, PhD
Senior rabbi of Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel
elkins park, pennsylvania
ew biblical themes are as ubiquitous in American
history as that of the Exodus. From the Puritans
to the Black Church to the Mormons to the Civil
Rights Movement and more, the escape of the
ancient Hebrews from Egypt and their long journey to the Promised Land has served as a paradigm for freedom and redemption for Americans of every faith, race, and
nationality since colonial times. Conversely, the Exodus has
also served as a moral measure by which expulsions, population
transfers, and forced migrations have been evaluated by many
Americans as antithetical to their national ethos.
America’s topography, a subcontinent framed by two oceans,
provides a physical basis for New World adaptations of the Exodus story. First, Native Americans leave their places of Asian
origin and cross a sea on “dry ground” before beginning their
wanderings in an unknown land. On the Atlantic side, particularly among pious English colonists, America was viewed as a
Promised Land reachable only after a near miraculous and often
horrifically dangerous passage across the sea. For many Jewish
immigrants to America, the North Atlantic passage to their
new Zion was deeply symbolic. Pacific immigrants also adopted
the same redemptive metaphor in their journey to America.
The depth of the identification with Exodus narrative in the
newly independent United States is symbolized by proposals
both by Benjamin Franklin and Thomas JeVerson for the first
Great Seal of the United States in 1776. Franklin envisioned a
dramatic picture of Moses with his hand over the sea opposite
a defiant Pharaoh, with signs of God’s support for the Hebrews
in the background. Franklin’s motto on his design for the seal
declared, “Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God.” Similarly,
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JeVerson envisioned a picture of the Children of Israel being
led through the wilderness by a pillar of fire. Remarkably, both
Franklin and JeVerson were Deists whose personal philosophies
maintained that God created the universe and then withdrew
from it. However, American independence must have struck
both of them as providential, thereby allowing them to embrace
a God of history, at least for that moment.
Nowhere in American history is the Exodus story more central than in the African-American experience. Already early in
the history of the Black Church, the stories of Jesus and Moses
were fused and the story of the Exodus was made inseparable
from the passion of Christ. White abolitionists, too, seized
upon the Exodus story for inspiration and proof of their cause,
as did everyone involved in the Underground Railroad, from
those “going through the sea” to those splitting the waters. Subsequently, internal migrations of American blacks such as the
“Exodus of 1879” also specifically referenced the biblical story
in name and spirit. In post–World War II America, Martin
Luther King, Jr. was seen by his supporters as a kind of modern Moses who led his Exodus but, like his biblical predecessor,
tragically did not make it to his Promised Land.
Indeed, little in American history and culture was untouched
by the story of the Exodus of the Hebrews through the Sinai.
Images of Daniel Boone leading pioneers into the wilderness
have a biblical feel about them. Internal explorers such as Lewis
and Clark as well as John C. Fremont (accompanied by a Jewish artist and photographer, Solomon Nunes Carvalho) were
perceived as American incarnations of Moses’s famed scouts.
More explicitly, the prophetic career of the founder of the Mormon Church and the dramatic journey of the members of the
Church of Latter Day Saints is perfectly synchronized with the
biblical Exodus.
Popular culture in the United States is also infused with
Exodus themes. Best known is the 1956 classic film, The Ten
Commandments. Four years later, the dramatic story of modern
Israel’s birth, complete with emotionally compelling music, was
captured in the film Exodus. With its explicit biblical themes,
the movie played a significant role in deepening support for the
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Jewish state in the United States. More recently, the animated
1998 film The Prince of Egypt helped introduce the Exodus
theme to millions of young and largely secular Americans.
The biblical story of the Exodus also casts a moral shadow
across darker episodes in American history. The “Trail of Tears”
removal of Native people under President Jackson, the shortlived 1862 expulsion of American Jews by General Grant from
areas under his command in the South, and the internment of
Japanese-Americans during World War II all have qualities of
being an anti-Exodus unworthy of either the biblical Exodus
or the American promise of freedom. Increasingly problematic among American Jews was the American failure to lead a
redemptive Exodus of Jews from Europe during the final years
of the Holocaust.
For American Jews, the Passover story found its most dramatic expression in the Soviet Jewry movement. “Let my people
go” found a new meaning among American Jews as they worked
for the exodus of Jews from the Soviet Union. Beginning in
1964, American Jews increasingly rallied in support of “refuseniks” and prospective Russian Jewish immigrants, culminating
in the 1987 March on Washington, DC, which attracted 250,000
supporters, the largest gathering in the history of the American
Jewish community.
In the final analysis, for most American Jews the Haggadah combines the American belief in freedom with Judaism’s
ancient hope for redemption. The story of our ancestors’ flight
from Egypt becomes one with our own ancestors’ decision to
leave Germany, Poland, and Russia and come to the American
Promised Land. It has also served as the foundation of our communal ethos that so often equates deliverance in our own time
with social justice and Jewish activism. Lastly, for American
Reform Jews, the inherent Zionism of the traditional call for a
return to Jerusalem is no longer viewed in terms of a potential
conflict of dueling nationalities but as a uniquely comfortable
synthesis of the deepest universal and particular aspects of our
ever redemptive Jewish tradition. Indeed, for most American
Jews it remains existentially possible to see ourselves as if we
personally had gone forth from Egypt over and over again!
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