Exodus - A Most Authentic Miracle

An old reform rabbi had a horrible nightmare:  A holy tribunal had put God on trial, found Him guilty, and sentenced Him to death.  The rabbi cried in his sleep, "God is dead!"

"Harvey!" his wife yelled, "Wake up!  Why are you so upset?" 

"I dreamed that God was dead!"  Thinking for a moment she said, "As a little girl my grandmother told me that you dream at night about the things you think about by day." 

"That's the problem," answered Harvey, "I haven't thought about God for the past 50 years and therefore this dream may be real."

Recently, David Wolpe, conservative rabbi at Sinai Temple, challenged his faithful in a Passover sermon by stating, "The truth is that virtually 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."

At Mount Sinai the Lord said, "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery." He did not say, "I am the Lord who created heaven and earth."  Scholars point out there were no witnesses to creation, but there were millions who actually experienced the exodus from Egyptian enslavement. To hear a sermon stating that archeologists are questioning Jewish enslavement makes me sad.  One knows that Jesus' last meal was a Passover supper honoring the story of the Jews' massive exodus from Egypt.  Major religions recognize the Bible's account of the exodus as authentic.

Living in a time of outrageous audacity, the rabbi's challenge fits with today's chutzpah.  His rhetoric sounds like a Holocaust revisionist challenging that six million Jews were never killed, claiming that they just disappeared. 

Not too long ago a mammoth mausoleum was uncovered in Egypt.  It is believed to have more than 62 chambers.  The period given for the mass tombs is the same as when the Hebrews were in Egypt.  The king was called Ramses al-Akbar - Ramses the greatest.  He is the same king that Moses spoke to as recorded in the biblical book of Exodus.  One of the tombs is said to contain the dead first-born who died in the tenth plague in 1212 B.C. as recorded in the Bible.  This is the same date the Jewish people give for their Exodus.

Whether the Old Testament has been superseded by the New Testament or Koran is religiously debatable but the fact of Israel's enslavement and massive exodus has never been questioned by religious leaders.  That is, until now. 

If there is no Passover miracle to celebrate then there is no need for a spiritual leader, at a synagogue named Sinai.

When world religious leaders celebrate their honored festivals they transmit the message of God's intervention in miraculous ways.  As my grandfather said, "We Jews don't believe in miracles, we just count on them."