How Would Pharaoh Read the Haggadah? with Rabbi Dr. Joshua Berman (284)
March 16, 2026
AI Summary
5 min readHow Would Pharaoh Read the Haggadah? with Rabbi Dr. Joshua Berman
The Torah is not a photograph—it's a painting. That metaphor, which Rabbi Dr. Joshua Berman borrows and adapts from Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Kook, captures the central argument of this episode. When the Torah tells the story of the Exodus, it does not aim for dry documentary accuracy. It aims to penetrate hearts and souls. And one of the most powerful ways it does so, Berman argues, is by taking the propaganda machinery of Pharaoh's Egypt and turning it upside down.
Why historicity matters
Berman begins with a direct challenge to those who say it does not matter whether the Exodus actually happened. The Ten Commandments open not with "I am the Lord who created you" but with "I am the Lord who took you out of Egypt." The entire foundation of Jewish obligation, he argues, rests on hakarat hatov—giving thanks for a specific act of redemption that happened to a specific people. Without that historical claim, the basis for the relationship collapses.
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What you'll learn
- 1 Timestamped Outline
- 2 (00:00) **Episode Introduction & Guest Background** - Scott Kahn introduces Rabbi Dr. Joshua Berman, professor of Tanakh at Bar-Ilan University and author of the new Haggadah *Echoes of Egypt*
- 3 (05:50) **Why the Historicity of the Exodus Matters** - Berman argues that the foundational Jewish relationship with God rests on *hakarat hatov* (gratitude) for the actual historical event of Yetziat Mitzrayim
- 4 (08:33) **Torah as Painting, Not Photograph** - Berman introduces Rabbi Kook's idea that Torah accounts may embellish facts to penetrate the soul, like a great painting versus a documentary
- 5 (11:14) **The Battle of Kadesh and Kriat Yam Suf** - Berman reveals a one-to-one correspondence between Ramses II's victory poem over the Hittites and the Torah's account of the splitting of the sea
- 6 (18:08) **Is Torah Eternal if It Requires Egyptology?** - Berman addresses the tension between Torah's eternal nature and its use of ancient Egyptian references that modern readers need scholarship to understand
- 7 (23:23) **Midrash vs. Egyptological Readings** - Berman explains that his approach is just one of the "70 faces of Torah" and doesn't disqualify kabbalistic or midrashic readings
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Show Notes
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What if the story we tell at the Seder was originally speaking directly to the world of Pharaoh?
In this episode of the Orthodox Conundrum Podcast, Rabbi Dr. Joshua Berman of Bar Ilan University joins me to discuss his fascinating new Haggadah, Echoes of Egypt. Drawing on discoveries from Egyptology and the broader study of the ancient Near Ea
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