Reply #21: I have no problem whatsoever with the symbolic importance of [View All]

[stopbush]

the Exodus myth. I only object to assertions that the myth is fact.

Here's the problem with that moving and powerful message: Rabbi Lerner apparently believes that the story gets its power by being portrayed as an historic fact, which it isn't. He believes the story would have less impact were he to admit it was a myth, or a morality play along the lines of Aesop's fables. Ergo, his "message" rings hollow when it need not be so.

Myth has always been a powerful instructive force to humankind. Why not place the Exodus story squarely where it belongs - among the instructive myths that man has written for himself over the ages? I think the answer is that for the author, believing it to be historic somehow makes it "true," and the author feels the need to have the weight of "fact" behind his article.