=Wrong and right conception of aim illustrated.= A lack of appreciation of these aims has often led to the treatment of the Biblical narrative as if it were merely a series of moral stories or, at any rate, of stories into which a moral can be read. According to this method the connection of the Jewish people today with the people of the Bible is almost wholly ignored and there is no appreciable difference in the way the events of the Biblical narrative are taught and, let us say, the incidents of some highly moral fairy tale or folk-lore of other peoples. To give an example I quote the following summary of a lesson on "Moses' Return to Egypt":
"So then we can learn these two noble things from our lesson; modesty adorns everybody even the greatest people, yes very often the greatest people are the most modest. And further, when we have begun to do something, let us do it with all our might and stick to it till it is finished, no matter what it is, whether a school lesson or setting a people free; whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well."
One could imagine the same moral attached to the story of George Washington or of Cincinnatus and brought home as effectively by it. The difference between the right and the wrong method of treating the Biblical narrative from the point of view of the aim of such instruction can be seen if we contrast the above with the simple summary of the same lesson in the Passover Haggadah:
"Slaves were we unto Pharaoh in Egypt and the Lord our God brought us forth thence with a strong hand and with an outstretched arm. And if the Holy One, Blessed be He, had not brought forth our fathers from Egypt behold we and our children and our children's children might still be bondmen to Pharaoh in Egypt." And again: "In every generation one is obliged to regard himself as if he in person had come forth from Egypt, as it is said, 'And thou shalt tell thy son in that day saying, It is because of that which the Lord did for me when I went forth from Egypt.' Not our fathers alone did the Holy One, Blessed be He, redeem but us also did He redeem with them, as it is said, 'And us did He bring forth thence in order to bring us hither to give us the land which He had sworn to our fathers.'"