““The trajectory of Exodus is unmistakable. When the book begins, the people are enslaved to a merciless despot who refuses to grant them even a moment’s respite (Exod. 5:5); when it ends they are serving the God of creation and covenant, who mandates and regularizes periods of rest (35:2). The mitzvah of Shabbat thus helps move the people from “perverted work, designed by Pharaoh to destroy God’s people . . . [to] divinely mandated work, designed to bring together God and God’s people, in the closest proximity possible in this life.”17 God rejects servility: whereas “Pharaoh places the Israelites under a backbreaking and soul-crushing yoke . . . God invites them to stand tall.”18””
