Librettist's Note: Exagoge

In ancient Alexandria, a Jewish writer named Ezekiel tried to write a version of Exodus as a Greek drama, in the tradition of the dramas which brought Greek myths to life on stage.  His play was a relatively faithful retelling of the story from the Torah, but it also incorporated pagan elements, most notably a phoenix at the end which served as a sort of deus ex machina.  Only fragments of the original text remain.

That is everything we know for sure about Exagoge.

The rest is speculation.  The play was probably written in the 2nd Century BCE.  But maybe a little earlier or later.  The Jewish Elders in Alexandria probably disapproved of it.  That can’t be proven, but it’s likely.  Theater itself was considered paganism. The physical representation of gods was idolatry, and of course mixing in pagan iconography with Jewish subject matter would not have been welcomed.  Did the Jewish Elders destroy the play, or was the original text lost for some other reason?  It is difficult for historians to say.

What does seem clear, reading between the remaining lines, is that Ezekiel was trying, in some way, to reach out to the pagan community.  We know that, historically, the Jews of Alexandria were surprisingly integrated into Alexandrian society.  The Greeks viewed Jews as philosophers for their belief in one God. Alexandria was a multicultural place, to use a modern term, though its nature changed once the Romans took over.

Counting from the time Jews came to Elephantine in about 600 BCE to the massacres of the Jews in Alexandria in about 100 CE, this era in Egypt (as opposed to the biblical era) lasted 700 years or so.  But yes, it ended in a massacre.  Ezekiel and other efforts at assimilation and integration didn’t save the Jewish community in the end.

In some ways, that parallels the Biblical account of the Jews in Egypt.  Joseph was beloved by the Pharoah, and it might seem at first that he and his extended family, the first Jewish people, might become a welcome addition to Egypt.  Yet by the time of Moses, the ruling Pharoah had decided the Hebrews were a threat and made them slaves, even going so far as to slay their first born.  Of course, Moses leads the Hebrews out of Egypt to the hope of a new land filled with milk and honey.  In Ezekiel’s telling of the story of Exodus, Moses is aided by an Alexandrian phoenix who leads the Hebrews to water in the desert.

Is the dream of true reconciliation between cultures and religions a pipe dream promoted by overly naïve and idealistic artists?  Perhaps.  But that doesn’t mean that Ezekiel’s efforts weren’t worthwhile.  Thousands of years have passed, and his dream is the sort of dream we still struggle with.

The Passover seder always ends with the phrase “Next year in Jerusalem.”  This phrase dates back to well before modern Israel, and its meaning is essentially a longing.  Next year, all will be well.  This idealized Jerusalem is a place where we will have found an answer to all the difficulty and strife in the world.

And yet the real Jerusalem, the Jerusalem today, is also an embodiment of conflicting cultures and strife.  Sometimes they exist together in peace.  Too often, they cannot.  The dream and the reality have not become one.  Perhaps right now they are further than ever.

The play that lives side by side with the opera is set very specifically in New York, in the modern Upper West Side.  It is a place I am very familiar with as a longtime Upper West Side resident.  I consulted with a friend who has some resemblance to Aliyah, but the character is also someone I feel very familiar with from my life here.  It is a play that is modern without being specifically in the current year:  I started writing this play ten years ago, and I decided not to try to keep up with current events.  But now or ten years ago, the questions of culture clash in my New York neighborhood feels gentler than what rages in the world beyond.  One can even believe at times that they are meaningless.  New York is a city of immigrants and children of immigrants who can live and celebrate their differing cultures together.  But even here, ancient and global questions disturb our delicate and peaceful balance.  Can those differences ever be completely reconciled?  Is assimilation the answer, or is it even desirable? 

Next year in a Jerusalem that has all the answers, that finds dignity and respect for all, that finally finds the way towards peace.  History shows the hope is foolish, but it also shows that the hope is necessary.  Like Ezekiel, another naively idealistic artist, it is my job to hope.