In the Torah reading of Bo, the command is given by God to Moses to observe Passover, even prior to the revelation of Sinai, and Moses then transmits the command to the elders of the people of Israel (Exodus 12, 1-28 and 43-50) – and, the first Passover is observed on the night of the exodus from Egypt (Exodus 12, 28 and 50-51). Passover is the celebration of the exodus from Egypt marking the birth of the Jewish people.
Traditional Judaism is a religion in a completely different sense than Christianity. Christianity is a religion in the sense of a faith commitment – faith not just in God but in Jesus as the messiah. Christianity is a community of believers, and one who lacks the fundamental faith commitment in Jesus as the messiah is not a true Christian even if born of Christian parents. That is, in principle there can be no such thing as a secular, non-believing Christian.
By contrast, traditional Judaism is a religion not in the sense of a faith commitment but in the sense of a culture and way of life of the Jewish people – not faith in God nor any other faith commitment defines one as a Jew, and among the Jewish people there are those who define themselves as religious and those who define themselves as secular. What defines one as a Jew is not a faith commitment nor a traditional life of observance of law and ritual but being born to a Jewish mother or having converted – and what unites Jews is not a faith commitment nor a traditional life of observance of law and ritual but being part of a people with a shared history, language (Hebrew), national homeland (Israel) and culture or way of life (and in speaking of Judaism as a culture I am speaking not only of a traditional life of observance of law and ritual but also secular Jewish culture, such as Israeli folk dancing, which is not a part of traditional Jewish law or ritual but is an expression of a larger Jewish culture).
Thus, there are two elements of Judaism as a religion – Judaism as a way of life (religion-culture) and Jewish peoplehood. These two elements are reflected in the Biblical conception in two religious covenants between God and the Jewish people, according to the Biblical account. The first is the covenant between God and Abraham. There are two important features characteristic of the covenant with Abraham – Abraham is to be the spiritual father of the people Israel (the Jewish people), and the Jewish people are to inherit the land of Israel. The sign of the covenant of Abraham is circumcision – “And I will establish my covenant between Me and you and your seed after you…every male child among you shall be circumcised…and it shall be a sign of the covenant between Me and you” (Genesis 17, 7-11).
The second is the covenant between God and Moses. The characteristic feature of the covenant with Moses is the receiving of the Torah (the 5 Books of Moses) on Mount Sinai representing the birth of Judaism as a religion. To be accurate, the Five Books of Moses do not describe the entire Torah (the 5 Books of Moses) as being given on Mount Sinai. Rather, according to the Torah, the tablets containing the so called ten commandments (the Torah and the Talmudic rabbis use the term ten statements) and other mitzvot (commandments) were given on Mount Sinai. Yet, nowhere in the Five Books of Moses is it written explicitly that the entire Torah as a written document came from Sinai. However, according to Jewish tradition, the Torah (the 5 Books of Moses) is regarded as given on Sinai; and is the legal constitution, and a source of moral and spiritual guidance, of the Jewish people. The main sign of the covenant of Moses is the Sabbath – “And the Lord spoke to Moses saying speak to the children of Israel saying, you shall surely keep My Sabbaths for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations” (Exodus 31, 12-13).
The receiving of the Torah on Mount Sinai does not represent the birth of the Jewish people, but the birth of the Jewish religion – and is celebrated on Shavuot. Although Abraham is the spiritual father of the Jewish people, the birth of the Jewish people occurs with the exodus of the people Israel from slavery in Egypt – and is celebrated on Passover. These two historical events, the exodus from slavery in Egypt and the receiving of the Torah (the tablets and other commandments) on Mount Sinai, are the two great and defining historical events of the Torah (the 5 Books of Moses) and the Jewish tradition in representing the birth of the Jewish people and the birth of the Jewish religion. Judaism as a religion then includes both of these elements of peoplehood and religion-culture.
Abraham was actually not a Jew having lived prior to the exodus (the first mass slave escape in recorded history) and birth of the Jewish people, in which Hebrew slaves escaped out of slavery and formed themselves into a people Israel (the Biblical name of the Jewish people). The Bible describes Abraham as a Hebrew, and not as a Jew. The patriarchs of the Jewish people – Abraham, Isaac and Jacob – were Hebrews, and not Jews. One explanation of the term Hebrew among historians is that the term is not a noun referring to a specific ethnic, national or racial group but an adjective describing a type of people (wanderers who did not belong to any particular society). Such wanderers were shepherds raising sheep and cattle, as the Torah describes the patriarchs and their families. They were not tied to any particular land, but wandered from area to area depending upon the availability of grazing land for their herds. According to this explanation, there were Hebrews from earliest times throughout the ancient near east (Mesopotamia, Canaan and Egypt).
The Bible describes Abraham as coming originally from Mesopotamia, wandering with his family to the land of Canaan and spending time in Egypt as well. Furthermore, according to this explanation, not all Hebrews became members of the Jewish people. Rather, according to the Biblical account, members of the families and clans of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob became enslaved in Egypt, and escaped from slavery, joined by what the Bible (Exodus 12, 38) calls a mixed multitude (people of differing racial and ethnic background), marking the birth of the Jewish people not in a racial or ethnic sense but in a nationalistic sense (as there were Jews of differing racial and ethnic background, such as the mixed multitude, from the beginning of Jewish history, and anyone no matter racial or ethnic background can convert to the Jewish people).
According to the Biblical account, the first person to term the Jewish people a people is Pharaoh (Exodus 1, 9) – “behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we”. The French philosopher, Sartre, wrote in his work, Anti-Semite and Jew, on the origins and causes of anti-Semitism (to which Sartre was opposed) – “the Jew is one whom other people consider a Jew”. In my view, Sartre was speaking of Jewish identity in a negative sense, which is imposed upon Jews by the non-Jewish world. The non-Jewish world does not allow us to forget that we are Jews even when we wish to do so. We, as Jews, have suffered from oppression, far more than any other people. Our history as a people begins with suffering and oppression, as our ancestors Hebrews were enslaved, oppressed and persecuted in ancient Egypt. Since the Exodus, we have a history of suffering thousands of years of oppression, persecution and anti-Semitism (Jew hatred).
On Passover, in traditional Judaism, in celebrating the birth of the Jewish people, we read the Haggadah. The Haggadah is an ancient text having its roots in the Talmudic period, which we read on the first night of Passover in telling the story of the exodus in fulfillment of the Biblical command (Exodus 13, 8) – “And you shall tell your son in that day, saying: It is because of that which the Lord did for me when I came forth out of Egypt”. The term Haggadah comes from the same root word of the verse meaning to tell.
In my eyes, a high point of the Haggadah is a passage “the 4 children”, and in particular “the wicked child” who asks – “what is this service to you?” The Haggadah then explains that “saying you he excludes himself, and because he excludes himself from the general (the Jewish people), he denies a fundamental principle (and the phrase to deny a fundamental principle is a Talmudic term for heresy)”. This passage is striking in that the wicked child here is defined as a heretic not because he has denied a theological principle, such as belief that God exists, that God is provident or that the Torah is Divinely revealed. Rather, the principle that the wicked child has denied is not theological but nationalistic – the excluding himself from the Jewish people means that the wicked child has no feeling or sense of Jewish identity and belonging to the Jewish people.
In the Hebrew Bible, there is no binding theological dogma and no term for theological heresy. The Hebrew term emunah (אמונה), which is often inadequately translated as faith or belief is from the same root as the Hebrew word art (אמנות) – and the term emunah is a matter of the heart (like art), and not a matter of the rational mind (like science or philosophy). The question of whether God exists is an abstract question that is completely foreign to the Biblical literature. Emunah in the Bible is used consistently, without exception, in a psychological sense of trust in, or loyalty to, God who is conceived of as most importantly a moral God who demands morality – and, emunah expresses itself in moral behavior and not in proper theological belief. The concern of the Bible is with behavior and not theological belief. Nowhere in the Bible is there any discussion of a theological atheist who denies God as a matter of philosophic belief and is moral.
In the Talmudic tradition, there is no binding theological dogma, and the Talmudic term apikorus (heretic) does not refer to theological heresy, but refers to heresy in a behavioral sense of degrading or deriding the Torah (the Jewish tradition) or a Torah scholar (as an authoritative interpreter of the Torah). Secular, non-observant Jews (not observant of Jewish law and traditional ritual practice) are not heretics unless we judge in a negative and unfavorable light that such a non-observant lifestyle arises out of scorn or derision regarding Judaism. If we judge in a positive and favorable light that a non-observant lifestyle arises out of conviction of the heart, or is simply a comfortable lifestyle for so many non-observant Jews, then there is no basis in the Talmudic tradition for considering such a non-observant lifestyle heresy.
On Passover then we are celebrating the birth of the Jewish people and the unity of the Jewish people. Jews, who do not believe in God (or any other theological beliefs that are a part of the Jewish tradition), and who are not observant of a traditional lifestyle of law and ritual, are not seen as wicked – according to the Passover Haggadah in our celebration of the birth of the Jewish people. The wickedness of the wicked son, according to the Haggadah, is in his having no sense of Jewish identity and excluding himself from the Jewish people.