ABSTRACT
The formative story that all Jews share is that of the Exodus. Liberation from slavery in Egypt and accepting the Torah as a binding commitment to live ethically bound lives in a relationship with God is what made the Israelites Jews. The story of the Exodus, annually remembered at the beginning of Passover, is usually recounted either to remind Jews of their everlasting debt to God, or to prompt Jews to oppose all present forms of slavery. But there is another, inner, meaning to the story. Between escaping from Egypt and arriving in the "Promised Land", the Children of Israel wandered for forty years in the wilderness, along the way receiving their revelation. The wilderness is a physical transition point between Egypt and the Promised Land, but it is also a psychological one between captivity–enslavement to old ways of living and thinking–and freedom–the freedom to choose how to live and whom to honour.
