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On April 13, 2001, corresponding to the Hebrew date 20 Nisan
5761, the eve of Seventh Day of Passover, the anniversary of the splitting of
the Red Sea, the "Los Angeles Times" ran a front page story,
Doubting
the Story of Exodus.
David Wolpe, a personal trainer (sorry! I meant to say Rabbi!) at the exclusive
Westwood Sinai country club (oops! I mean temple!) told his congregation:
"Every modern archeologist who has investigated the story of the Exodus,
with very few exceptions, agrees that the way the Bible describes the Exodus is
not the way it happened, if it happened at all."
We will "pass over" the question of whether the LA
Times would, during the month of Ramadan, run a front page story claiming
Mohammed never existed, or whether during the Christmas season the LA Times would run a front
page story denying the birth of Jesus.
We will "pass over" speculation as to why the good
Rabbi would accept the latest pronouncements of an ancient profession which,
until very recently, was known as "grave robbing" and "tomb
looting" and ask: if Wolpe doesn't believe in the First Commandment (I
am the Lord thy G-d, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house
of slavery), why doesn't he resign and take a job selling car insurance
or bagging groceries at Safeway? Or, since he is not trained for any kind of
actual work, at the very least, why does the Sinai Country Club continue to keep
a Torah scroll with those stupid Commandments in the sanctuary? Why don't they
replace it with the "LA Times" or the latest issue of "National
Geographic," since they have so much more faith in these secular
periodicals than they have in the Torah? Why don't they just knock down the
sanctuary altogether, and put in a tennis court, or a heated pool?
It is not the purpose of this article to "prove" the
truth of the Exodus, since there is already
a
book on this website which argues the case quite well.
"Doubting the Exodus" and other events described in
the Torah, the fundamental history of the Jewish People, is unfortunately not a
new trend in liberal and progressive "Judaism." As early as 1845,
Reform rabbis in Germany declared
they did not believe the Bible to be the Word of G-d. The nineteenth
century was an age of freedom and new ideas. The ghetto walls came crashing
down, and European Jews, sequestered for so many centuries, were invited, no, compelled
to step into the "light" and take their places as citizens with full
equal rights. All they had to do in return was--to step up and take their places
as citizens with full equal rights. No strings attached! But centuries of
oppression led some weak-spirited Jews to rationalize there must be a price for
civil rights. There was always a door out of the ghetto for any
Jew who wanted to leave: all he had to do was say the magic word and join the
friendly neighborhood church. That so few Jews chose to open this door shows
that they did not care to purchase political freedom at the expense of their
ancient faith.
The weaker element of the Jewish population suffered from a
collective case of low self-esteem, and somehow became convinced that in order
to be "a light unto the nations" they had to reflect the
"Enlightenment" of the intellectual gentiles. A new system of
"Judaism" was invented that rejected all the ancient laws and
ceremonies that set the Jews apart, and eagerly embraced every new fashion and
philosophy. Jews who warned that this heedless innovation would lead to
assimilation and ultimately, to extinction, were denounced as
"hyper-orthodox," "forces of darkness," "fiends of
fanaticism," "superstitious, backward, stupid," and similar
expressions now used by the loving, tolerant "pluralists" of the
present day to describe their ideological opponents, along with
"racists!" "sexists!" "bigots!" and
"homophobes!"
The new system erected magnificent temples throughout Europe and
America, installed organs to accompany the trained choirs, and hired clergymen
based on the power of their oratory more than their knowledge of the Torah.
Today this assimilationist system, born in the 19-century
"Enlightenment," claims millions of non-participating followers
worldwide who are defined by what they don't observe and don't
believe. Rejection of scriptural truth has led, inexorably, to the acceptance
and enthusiastic promotion of everything that is identified in Scripture as
"sinful" and "abominable."
Watchdog organizations operated by these Enlightened Ones follow
a peculiar agenda, born out of the traditional distrust of the 19-century newly
liberated ghetto Jew for religious Christians, and enhanced by their own desire
to be approved and accepted by the intellectual "in crowd." This
explains why Johnny Hart's harmless Easter Sunday "B.C." comic strip
generated such a uproar among the unfaithful, while the Rev. David Wolpe's far
more egregious attack on the very core of the Jewish faith went unchastised.
This also explains why they feel so threatened by outspoken Jewish believers
like Michael Medved, the "Jewish
World Review," and "Toward
Tradition".
The ferocity of language used by the self-proclaimed champions
of "truth," "tolerance," and "pluralism," against
those who don't accept without question the latest politically correct
doctrines of "Biblical scholarship" and "modern archaeology"
reveals an underlying fear that the very beliefs they reject so forcefully can
withstand challenge and intellectual scrutiny far better than the popular trends
they currently embrace. A "bible scholar" at the University of
Alberta, for example, recently declared, "No biblical scholar, of any ilk,
thinks that the Bible was written long before the 8th century B. C. E."
Quite clearly, this elite academic does not consider the Torah sages who teach
and have taught in the yeshivot of the current or previous
generations to be scholars "of any ilk."
Denying the fact of the Exodus and the Revelation that took
place in the desert requires a greater leap of faith and much more fanatical
blindness than acknowledging these events. The Jews have preserved the Torah and
observed all its meticulous laws for thousands of years, under the most adverse
circumstances, with minimal deviation after being scattered all over the world.
The various theories of the "Biblical scholars" as to when, where and
by whom the Bible was allegedly composed do not explain how the
"stubborn," "stiff-necked" Jewish people (as described in
the Bible) were tricked or coerced into accepting this monumental hoax, nor do
they have any rational explanation as to why the Jews have clung so tenaciously
and meticulously to the commandments for so many centuries and through so much
persecution.
If the Exodus never happened, how did it become so deeply
engrained in the collective Jewish psyche? How is it that no natural Jews,
however secular they may be, can trace their ancestry back further than four
generations without running into a solid line of believers? What would cause
generation after generation to endure so much suffering for the sake of some
phony hoax some Israelite ruler put over on the ignorant multitude (and the
"bible scholars" and the "modern archaeologists" can't even
agree on the identity of the prankster who perpetrated this massive Bible hoax).
Not one word as to how the entire Jewish people (including the so-called
"Ultra Orthodox") all agreed to go along with this weird scheme and kept
it up for century after century even when easier and more popular schemes
came along.
Mark Twain was puzzled about the persistence of the Jews:
"If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one
percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of star dust lost
in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly the Jew ought hardly to be heard of; but
he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as
any other people, and his commercial importance is extravagantly out of
proportion to the smallness of his bulk. His contributions to the world's list
of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and
abstruse learning are also away out of proportion to the weakness of his
numbers. He has made a marvelous fight in this world, in all the ages; and has
done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself, and be
excused for it. The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the
planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the
Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other
peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out,
and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them
all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of
age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his
alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces
pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?" The
Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg and Other Stories and Essays
The secret, of course, is no secret at all, if you read the
Bible.
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