Main news for 8 March 2025

The Law requires of us the same attitude toward every person, regardless of whether he is "one of ours" or a "stranger." This does not mean that God makes no distinctions between people, between His people and other nations. The same Torah describes quite clearly the requirements for those who would like to enter the people of God, become an integral part of it, and receive the right to participate in the religious life of the community: such a person had not only to accept Yahwism as his faith and the God of Israel as his God, but also to follow fully all religious norms and rules, including not only the commandments and moral norms, but also the rules of ritual purity, to which in pre-Christian times everywhere, including Yahwism, great attention was paid.

But another state of affairs was also possible: a sojourner, an outsider who decided to settle among the Jews, had the right to live among them without taking part in Yahwistic religious life, while enjoying all rights except the right to such participation. Naturally, all laws connected with the prohibition of blasphemy and sacrilege applied to him just as they did to the Jews themselves, but in other respects he was free.

It was precisely this norm of the Torah that allowed whole pagan tribes to live on the territory of the Jewish state without accepting Yahwism and while continuing to worship their gods, as happened in the time of David and Solomon. What was this: religious tolerance? Religious indifference toward everyone except one's own people? Probably neither one nor the other.

The Torah never equated paganism with Yahwism, just as it never equated pagans with the people of God. Rather, here there is respect for a person's freedom of choice in the main thing, in what concerns his spiritual life and therefore his religion. It is impossible, and meaningless, to "convert" a person by using the fact that he may simply have nowhere to go.

Besides, the very fact that a pagan is staying on God's land does not yet make him a Yahwist. Faith does not come by itself, and it is better not to mislead anyone in this regard: the one who wants to accept Yahwism must accept it not "automatically" by settling among believing Yahwists, but by making his own choice and joining the community.

In this way the Torah protects human freedom and preserves the purity of the community, freeing it from imaginary "believers" whose faith, when tested, turns out to be nothing but a formality and a desire to be "like everyone else."

Exo 12:49

NOTES

The death of the firstborn was the last straw: Pharaoh lets the people go. More than that, he hurries the Hebrews to leave. Why? Did Pharaoh think the Hebrews would want to leave Egypt? Later events will show clearly: no, he did not. The expectation was that the people would go to Beersheba, where there was an old Yahwist sanctuary that had existed since the time of Abraham, to Beersheba, which was then under Egyptian control. From the delta region it was about a three-day journey one way.

Pharaoh hoped that the Hebrews would go to Beersheba, offer the required sacrifices to their God, celebrate their feast, and return. Pharaoh now understood: otherwise he would not be rid of the wrath of Moses' God. Ordinary Egyptians thought the same. The story mentions that the Hebrews "plundered" the Egyptians. They certainly could not have done any such thing by force. Something else was quite possible: the Egyptians brought them offerings for their God.

That was an old Egyptian custom, and not only Egyptian: in order to be healed from illness or to avoid death, one had to bring an offering to the god who was probably or clearly the cause of the misfortune. As a rule, it was an amulet that directly or symbolically depicted what one wanted to get rid of. Amulets were made of gold, silver, or copper; and if a person could not afford anything of the sort, then of clay. Something else could also be donated if the cause of the misfortune was not exactly known: why, for example, the firstborn had died was rather hard for the Egyptians to determine. Often people donated the same gold or silver items so that the god's wrath would not touch the donor.

The Egyptians, as we see, had already become convinced: whoever Moses' God was, He was not to be trifled with. Simple people, untrained in theological subtleties, might consider Him some stern spirit of the desert, one of those whom, according to their ideas, nomads worshiped. In any case, this unknown god or spirit had to be appeased, for death had entered every house, and no one knew what to expect next. Both the authorities and ordinary people now looked at Moses as a savior, the only one who could save the country from otherwise inevitable destruction.

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