This week we hold the Exodus story up to the light and turn it —
like a jewel, the ancient rabbis would say. And Avivah Zornberg
tells us what she sees: astonishing detail, hues of meaning, and
a cargo of hidden stories. We follow Zornberg and find ourselves
addressed, whoever we are. This story, among all the narratives
of the Hebrew Bible, has proven itself a bearer across time of
near-universal themes. Scholars locate it in history. But Exodus
also qualifies lavishly for my favorite definition of "myth" — a
word we've diminished, equated with things that are not "true."
Myth, said the Greek statesman Solon, "is not about something
that never happened. It is about something that happens over and
over again." In a paraphrase I also love, Rabbi Sandy Sasso once
said to me about the Exodus story, with its irresistible
dramatic potential: "What happened once upon a time happens all
the time." Judaism indulges this insight with its practice of
midrash — a practice of seeking multiple meanings in sacred
text, of