Exodus

There is no greater objective than freedom. The freedom to live under your own fig tree with none to make you afraid. The freedom to act differently to the crowd and according to your own conscience. But though freedom may be easy to say, it is famously hard to define; and even harder to implement in our broken world.

For Jews, the Book of Exodus is the ultimate guide to liberty, a ringing bell that sounds across the land and calls to us through the sands of time. Though the centuries may pass, the imperative to implement this greatest of injunctions grows ever louder.

Every week, the Jewish people read a portion of the Torah in their synagogues and write accompanying articles known as Divrei Torah. These are unique opportunities to engage with the text, to converse with commentators from across the ages and to present to the world your own unique insights. Today it is my turn. You are about to read my reflections on this most famous of books and though they are written in a somewhat unorthodox style, they are a sincere attempt to reflect on the themes of the Holy word and apply them to our current condition as a people and as a wider human family.

For what is the purpose of the Torah and the telos of Jewish thought? Is it to create a closed religious sect? Or is it to spread the word of freedom throughout the nations of the Earth? The Torah knows no religious or secular; It just knows the sincerity of any man or woman who aims to create a better world.

Let me ask out loud what you're all thinking. What is a non-practicing Jew doing writing about the Torah? What is a man of reason expecting to achieve by engaging with religious texts? And how, by doing so, am I making the change that our world so desperately needs? Join me on this journey; accompany me on this quest; and the answers will speak back at you as if you personally were standing in the Tent of Meeting in the Wilderness of Sinai. So let us take our leave of Egyptian servitude and venture onwards into the great and courageous uncertainty so excitingly laid out before us.