The story of the Jewish people’s exodus from Egyptian slavery has served the Jewish people, on a national and individual level, as an inspiration in the midst of oppression. The drama of the Exodus has given hope for a brighter future. For some, the Exodus is not seen as a one time event, but rather as God’s intervention in the world and in God’s promise that God will be with the Jewish people.

In “The Role of Non-establishment Groups”, journalist Walter Ruby exhibits this idea when he wrote “virtually no one,… dared predict in 1985-88, that the seemingly impregnable citadel of repression that was the Soviet Union would self-destruct so quickly, or that more than 500,000 Jews would be able to leave the USSR in three years beginning in late 1989.

The only person I remember who made such a prediction was Avital Sharansky, who told me during an interview in New York during a very bleak moment in 1984 … that not only would Anatoly soon be granted his freedom, but that hundreds of thousands more Soviet Jews would be coming on aliyah in the near future.

I asked Avital what was her basis for being so optimistic at a moment when U.S.-Soviet relations had hit a low point. She responded with evident seriousness that her study of Judaism had convinced her that the God of Israel had already preordained a great modern Exodus of Soviet Jewry to rival the biblical Exodus from Egypt. I recall feeling in awe of Avital’s evident deep faith in Jewish redemption in the face of an implacable situation that appeared to be turning more ominous, but concluding sadly that she was engaged in willful self-delusion. I fact, Avital Sharansky’s unworldly vision proved prophetic.”