This collection makes Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’ brilliant essays on the weekly Torah portions within Exodus available in book form for the first time. Rabbi Sacks fuses Jewish tradition, Western philosophy and literature to present a highly developed understanding of the human condition under God’s sovereignty. This second volume in the five-volume series includes several concise essays for each portion of Exodus.

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The book of Exodus is the West’s meta-narrative of hope. It tells an astonishing story of how a group of slaves were liberated from the mightiest empire of the ancient world. Theologically, its message is even more revolutionary: the supreme power intervenes in history in defence of the powerless. Exodus is about the birth of a nation; about politics, society, and the principles on which a people can come together to form associations. Thus it teaches us about justice, freedom and the rule of law; about the sanctity of life and human dignity.

At the heart of Exodus is the monumental covenant at Sinai, which is nothing less than the first-ever statement of a free society, in which an entire nation committed itself to the sovereignty of God, with the revolutionary understanding that the religious situation is a partnership, a reciprocal relationship, between God and humankind.