A triple braided cord

By Yoram Ettinger, ISRAEL HAYOM

While Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” — a pamphlet partially based on the teachings of the Biblical Moses, the judge Gideon and the prophet Samuel — cemented the 1776 American Revolution against the British crown, the Passover story cemented the Jewish revolution (against the Egyptian crown), Jewish nationhood and the Jewish state. The Passover legacy contributed to the foundation of the culture, justice and liberty of the United States, and to the American people’s special attitude toward the Jewish state.

According to the late Israeli philosopher and historian Israel Eldad, the Passover legacy has accompanied the Jewish people for the last 3,400 years, ever since our deliverance — against seemingly insurmountable odds — from slavery and our transformation into a sovereign people via a series of supernatural events: the Ten Plagues, particularly the last, which killed the Egyptian first-born children but passed over the Jewish ones; the deliverance from slavery in powerful Egypt; the parting and crossing of the Red Sea; the reception of the Ten Commandments; rebounding from the crises of the Golden Calf and the Ten Spies; survival of 40 years against military, social, economic, external and internal odds in the desert; and, finally settling the Land of Israel.

According to “realistic” assessments, Judaism and the Jewish people were expected to be extinct by 2016. Instead the Jews have risen to new heights, contributing immensely to humanity, while some of their formidable enemies have suffered major setbacks (and some have become extinct themselves).

The sea of history has parted many times since the Biblical Exodus, allowing the Jewish people to march on relatively dry ground (although soaked with much Jewish blood) to the Promised Land in defiance of destruction, exile, expulsions, autos-da-fe (execution by burning), the Holocaust, pogroms, violent anti-Semitism, conventional warfare and terrorism — while their enemies drowned.

In 1897, Theodor Herzl “crossed the sea” with very few true believers — chased by the chariots of skepticism, shaming, hostility and austerity — and convened the First Zionist Congress, which led to the eventual reconstruction of the Jewish commonwealth. In 1947-1949, David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s founding father for all intents and purposes, “crossed the sea” with only 600,000 fellow Jews — chased by the chariots of a hostile British Empire, a U.S. military embargo, invading Arab military forces and Arab terrorism from within — and re-established the Jewish state. In 1967, Prime Minister Levi Eshkol “crossed the sea” — chased by the chariots of Western threats, a Soviet military alliance with the Arabs, U.N. hostility and a Joint Arab Military Command ready to invade — reunited Jerusalem and reclaimed Jewish control of Judea, Samaria and the Golan Heights. In 1981, Prime Minister Begin “crossed the sea” — chased by the chariots of brutal U.S. and global pressure and overwhelming domestic opposition — and destroyed Iraq’s nuclear reactor, and spared the U.S. a nuclear war in 1991.

The ancient Jewish sage Rabban Gamliel, who realized the permanent relevance of the Passover legacy to Jewish challenges, instructed: “Each generation must consider itself as if it was liberated from Egypt.”

In fact, the liberation from Egypt inspired the pilgrims of the Mayflower (1620) and Arbella (1630), who considered themselves the people of the “modern day Exodus,” departing from “modern day Egypt,” crossing the “modern day Red Sea,” and heading toward the “modern day Promised Land.” Hence, the abundance of sites in the U.S. bearing biblical names (including 18 Jerusalems). The Exodus also shaped the worldview of the 18th century Founding Fathers, who viewed themselves as the people of the “modern day Covenant.” It continues to impact the American ethos to this day.

Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” refers to King George III as “the hardened, sullen-tempered Pharaoh of England.”

The second and third U.S. presidents, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, and the relatively secular Founding Father Benjamin Franklin, proposed the parting of the sea as the official U.S. seal. The proposal was tabled, and the chosen seal features 13 stars (representing the colonies) in the shape of a Star of David.

Ezra Stiles, the president of Yale University — which features on its shield the Hebrew words “Urim and Thummim” (objects associated with the high priest’s vestments during the Exodus) — stated on May 8, 1873: “Moses, the man of God, assembled three million people — the number of people in America in 1776.”

“Go down Moses” and “Let my people go” became the pillar of fire for the abolitionist movement. Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” was motivated by the Passover legacy, in general, and the laws of Moses, which condemn slavery, in particular.

Harriet Tubman, who risked her life smuggling slaves to the free states and Canada, was known as “Mama Moses,” and her biography is titled “The Moses of Her People.” Tubman followed in the footsteps of the Biblical Shifra and Puah, two Jewish midwives who risked their lives to hide newborn Jewish boys in violation of Pharaoh’s command (Numbers 1:15-19). Women played a central role in the legacy of Passover, highlighting Yocheved, Moses’ mother, who hid Moses and then breastfed him at Pharaoh’s palace, posing as a nursemaid; Miriam, Moses’ sister, who was her younger brother’s keeper; Princess Batya (Bithiah), the daughter of Pharaoh, who saved, adopted and raised Moses (Numbers 2:1-10); and Tzipora, Moses’ wife, who saved his life and set him back on the Jewish course (Numbers 4:24-27).

On Dec. 11, 1964, upon accepting the Nobel Prize, Martin Luther King, Jr., who was referred to as the Moses of his age, said: “The Bible tells the thrilling story of how Moses stood in Pharaoh’s court centuries ago and cried, ‘Let my people go!'”

In the present day, the bust of Moses faces the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, and a statue of Moses holding the Tablets towers above the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court.

The deeply rooted link between Passover, the U.S. and Israel is accurately described by King Solomon’s momentous lesson (Ecclesiastes 4:12): “A triple-braided cord is not easily broken.”