Egypt & Israel as Biblical Metaphors for Unjust and Just Societies

In early June, a group of us from Pax Christi Summit and Beyond Just Faith went to hear Jack Jezreel, the founder of the Just Faith program speak at St. Catherine's in Glen Rock, NJ. The topic was “Putting Faith into Action�. Jezreel spoke for four hours on his experience with social justice ministries in local parishes and his formula for creating awareness and interest in helping others on a local level. He is a wonderful, engaging and dynamic speaker, so I would highly recommend that if you have the chance to here him speak that you take it.

I am just getting back to the pages upon pages of notes that I took that day. Instead of trying to pour them all out on a page in a single article I am going to focus on some of the topics and themes in separate articles. So the plan is for this to be the first of a series.

Jezreel began with a familiar theme to Catholics which is the root of our religion in Judaism. I had heard this many times as priests and catechism teachers discussed the Catholic Mass and the days of Holy Week following the Jewish Holiday. Jezereel, however, related the strong Catholic tradition and doctrines relating to social justice to the Old Testament beginning with the book of Exodus. At the same time he countered the socialist concept that religion is the “opiate of the people�. Jezereel related the beginning of Exodus to us this way “A group of slaves cry out to God to relieve their suffering. God does not tell Moses to tell them that it gets better in the hereafter. God tell Moses to free the slaves.�

According to Jzereel the Bible is not just important in terms of individual morality and spirituality, it is important as a blueprint for just economic and political systems. He uses the example of Egypt and Israel being direct opposites. He explains that Egypt apart from being an actual place and the book of Exodus discussing a specific time, it is a metaphor for an unjust political system and an evil society.

Egypt the personification of Evil
1. Dysfunctional Economic System- Egypt employs an economic system of inequality where only part of the population benefits at the expense of others.
2. Politics of Oppression- The power strategy is one of oppression, exploitation and exclusion. The oppressed are deliberately excluded because they will act to change the system.
3. Religion of a puppet god – That which the Pharoh proclaims is the word of God is just the word of Pharoh. The religion is simply a rubber stamp on the either the status quo or the policies and desires of the ruler and the ruling class.

Israel the anti Egypt
1. Inclusive economic system – There is an equitable distribution of wealth and resources. There is an underlying idea that God has given us all things as a gift to be shared.
2. Politics of Justice and Compassion- The word most used to describe the Covenant in the Bible is Justice.
3. Religion of an Omnipotent Merciful God- No one can presume to know God’s will or image. No one can presume to have exhaustive knowledge of God.

The Catholic Church has a language of rights which is greater than the Bill of Rights in the Constitution. These rights include, food, shelter, clothing, health care, education and dignified work and are written about extensively in the Church documents. Unfortunately not all Catholics are familiar with the Church's teachings on social justice.

How much of Egypt exists in our current government and our society in general? How can we make it more like Israel? Moreover how much of Egypt do we accept or encourage in our political and economic system?