The Good Book as a Great Book! Review of Kass’s, “Founding God’s Nation”
Founding God’s Nation: Reading Exodus
By Leon R. Kass (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2021).
Review by John R. Vile (Middle Tennessee State University)
For years, political philosophers have debated the relationship between reason and revelation, Athens and Jerusalem, but after reading Greek and Roman political philosophers, students in political theory classes are more likely to encounter revelation not by reading the Bible itself but through the lens of St. Augustine, St. Aquinas, or even John Locke. Leon Kass’ brilliant new book provides an opportunity for professors of political philosophy to add the book of Exodus to the canon of works that they assign to their students.
Kass, the Clark Harding Professor Emeritus in the Committee on Social Thought and the College at the University of Chicago, was trained in science and medicine and raised as a nonobservant Jew who once considered “religion” to be a form of “superstition” (ix). He decided on the birth of a child that a familiarity with the Jewish heritage would be valuable. Fascinated after attending a synagogue and hearing a Rabbi extract meaning from the creation of the Tabernacle, Kass subsequently taught the book of Genesis (which he has explicated in The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis) and later Exodus as part of the Great Books program at the University of Chicago.
Approaching the books with an open mind, he discovered “an account of human life that can more than hold its own with the anthropological and ethical teachings offered by the great poets and philosophers” (xi). He further found that biblical “teachings of righteousness, humaneness, and human dignity” provided something missing from mere philosophizing by providing “the core principle of a humanistic and democratic politics, respectful of every human being” (xi).
As a lay pastor, I regularly consult Bible commentaries in preparing my lessons, but I rarely read all the way through a commentary. By contrast, even though I knew how the story would progress, I found reading this book to be much like reading a novel. At last, someone has done for Exodus what so many political philosophers have done for Plato’s Republic, Aristotle’s Politics, and a host of secular works.
Although the book is missing the parallels that a Christian commentator would undoubtedly draw between the creation of the nation of Israel and Christ’s creation of the church and the institution of the Passover and Jesus’s institution of the Lord’s Supper, Kass provides similar attention to the language of the text (often providing his own Hebrew translations), to the context, and to explicating passages that might not be initially luminous. His previous work on the book of Genesis often enables him to draw parallels that one might otherwise miss. Moreover, Kass notes that although God is most directly concerned with the nation of Israel, “He appears also to have the whole human race in mind” (4).
Although Kass gives due attention to the giving and reception of the law, he also emphasizes the manner in which God’s actions throughout Exodus demonstrate his mercy and grace. Noting that God’s grace endureth “to the thousandth generation” of those who love him, Kass observes that “the world overflows with chesed or grace” (313). He consistently emphasizes how Exodus, in contrast to many philosophers and theologians, describes God not through abstractions but through a record of his concrete actions on behalf of his people. As Kass puts it, Exodus describes God “not through inquisitive speech or philosophical speculation (fruitlessly seeking the essence), but through attending to God’s commands and deeds” (73).
As one accustomed to God’s disclosure of Himself at the burning bush as “I Am What I Am,” I was fascinated by Kass’ translation of “I Will be What I Will Be” (72). Consistent with the text, Kass explains God’s relationship to Israel as one of covenant. He also emphasizes the keeping of the Sabbath and the role of the Tabernacle as a symbol of God’s presence with his people (Christians will undoubtedly recall that Jesus was announced in Matt. 1:23 as “God with us”). Although the nation that Moses founded would be based on consent, it was not so much devoted to “enjoying rights to life, liberty, and the private pursuit of happiness” but to “seeking righteousness and holiness” (114).
Kass acknowledges problems that his students presented – why, for example, did God strike down the first-born sons of all the Egyptians and not just those in the house of the Pharaoh – but he almost always presents helpful possibilities, often grounded in the work of other Jewish scholars. I found his comparison to the crossing of the Sea of Reeds as “a national rebirth by passing through the divided waters” (193) as especially illuminating. As one who was raised as a fundamentalist Baptist, I smiled when, after comparing Miriam’s dance after Israel’s deliverance with the later worship of the golden calf, he observed that “Dancing, as such, is pregnant with diverse offspring” (216).
Kass often ties the virtues explicated in Exodus with those of Greek philosophy, which would make for great points of comparison in a political theory class. Kass notes both that Joseph appears to have had a role in furthering Egyptian slavery to the Pharaoh and that Moses’ own background served somewhat to set him apart from his own people. Ultimately, he portrays Moses as someone who was willing to pass on his own authority to elders and priests.
Although his approach is philosophical, Kass notes that creation can tell us about the power of God but not about his love and that “disembodied intellects do not care a fig for human beings and surely do not bring them forth from bondage” (504). Somewhat later, he observes that “punishment must be earned, but grace and mercy are gifts” while adding that “Knowledge does not command grace. Philosophizing is ultimately unendowed” (558). Although Kass amply describes the sacrificial system, he portrays this system as instituted on behalf of the people rather than of God, and emphasizes God’s preference for righteousness and works of mercy over ritual.
Christians can learn much from this book, which, while presenting a God who gives laws, describes Him as “compassionate, loyal, awe-inspiring, powerful, righteous, solicitous, philanthropic, merciful, and present” (600). It is particularly appropriate at a time when caught “between technocracy and hedonism,” we are too often “feasted in body but famished in soul,” as our national fabric unravels (602).
