4 Between Pharaohs and Nomads

Moses

The Lord makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel.

—Exodus 11:7

The tradition of the pyramid faces that of the campfire.

—Martin Buber

Introduction

Buber’s treatment of Moses reveals the extent to which he sees the people Israel
as both a distinct historical phenomenon and a transhistorical theopolitical proj-
ect.^2 Moses is presented as visionary, founder, and revolutionary paradigm: many
of the obstacles he faces are perennial. Moses foresees a certain kind of life for
his people but also expects a struggle to achieve it. In this sense, Buber’s Moses
is a militant, defending his theopolitical vision from the Egyptian oppressor and
from idolaters within his own camp. These struggles illuminate what Buber sees
as essential to Moses’ vision. Just as in Kingship of God, Buber polemicizes against
those scholars who would foreclose the theopolitical possibilities that he desires
to keep open.
Organizing his text around the idea of Moses as both an effective revolu-
tionary and a witness to a personal divine encounter, Buber sets himself against
several competing tendencies in Moses scholarship. First, he opposes any view
of Moses as primarily concerned with cultic purity, whether as priest or legisla-
tor; he concurs with critical scholarship in regarding the priestly code as almost
entirely post-Mosaic. Second, there is the notorious viewpoint represented by
Sigmund Freud (whose Moses and Monotheism is dismissed by Buber in a single
footnote), wherein Moses is the product of Egyptian culture who molds the Isra-
elites into a neo-Egyptian, Aten-worshipping splinter group.^3 Finally, those who
might agree with Buber’s depiction of Moses as revolutionary raise the question
of revolutionary ethics; here Buber rejects any notion of a “red terror of God”
against Egypt or of Joshua as violent enforcer of Moses’ edicts.^4 However, he can-
not completely absolve Moses of complicity in means destructive of his ends; this
contributes to what Buber calls “the tragedy of Moses.”