Mohammed Mana – Timeless Parallels From The Epic Of Moses

			I really hope that the students come out of this course, realizing that, although the story took
place, many, many centuries ago, yeah, you know, and and there might, there must have been a lot of
obviously, there are a lot of changes that have happened in the way we live our lives, no doubt,
right, no one's denying that. But I really would would love if the students would
		

			focus on some of those lessons on some of those character traits of the oppressors and of Moosa as
well. And, and kind of
		

			think about that deeply and reflect upon it deeply and never feel that that actually, that was back
then. And now is different. But actually, if you if you look towards many of the events of now, you
can draw so many parallels, I feel like you do a lot, a lot of that. And it's almost like, at first,
when you mentioned some of these things like the issue of nationalism, right, or shallow
nationalism. Like at first it just it like you're presenting it as part of the story. And then it
just becomes so clearly apparent as like, Oh, these are the things that happened today and continue
to happen, and have happened in the past even the recent past? Well, that's the beauty of starting
		

			with a question. Yeah. So you know, we noticed something that a lot highlights in the story. And we
asked why, why was this highlighted? Generally speaking, we noticed that there's not an immense
amount of detail, generally speaking, and a lot of the stories in the plan. And so when you come to
the story of Musa and you actually find mention of certain details, what that kind of does to us,
you're kind of programmed to, to not expect so many of those details. So when one of them is
mentioned, you, you really want to ask a question, why is this highlighted? Right? And when you do
that, when you get into that process of asking, you know, it just leads into so many other questions
		

			as well. When when fit our own tries to talk to talk to the people and tell them
		

			that this is their land, Musa Musa is going to take their land from them? Like what exactly is he
preaching to them? What is he trying to bring out? You know, is there is there some type of
character trait? Or is there some type of underlying belief that he's trying to kind of stoke the
fires? I feel like that he's pushing forth, the idea is trying to drive fear into the hearts of
people fear. Yeah. So what is the impact that fear has on a community of unknown societal level,
people give up a lot of their own rights and a lot of their own freedoms of giving up rights giving
up freedoms, yeah.
		

			Yours is sort of maintaining their position as slaves. there's a there's a sort of mental and
intellectual paralysis, kind of, you know, where you stop analyzing, you stop thinking critically,
you know, because because you're afraid.
		

			There's debilitating, there's this philosophy, where it's hard to be creative, and somebody who can
actively start solving problems. It's like the idea that, and this might be a little
		

			weird, but you don't think about, you know, poetry, art, and solving problems when you're vomiting.
		

			In that moment, all you care about is like, Alright, I don't want to vomit anymore. Right? It's like
that same idea that like, situation of like, survival mode.
		

			Right? where it's like, you just are even like, hey, when is my next meal?
		

			Right when somebody is in a situation where when, like, they don't care about local politics and
things like that, when,
		

			you know, if they're in an economic situation where they have to worry about When are they going to
eat? Yeah. And I think this is kind of same scenarios like, and I think one of the things that you
mentioned, in the class is about how,
		

			even if the pharaoh or the moronic system would ease up something, they would take it as Oh, there's
it's so great. It's so yeah, do your favor. They're so generous. When in reality, there's such a
human right human rights issue that's in that's not being fulfilled. Yeah.
		

			I just you know, it's really important for us to look at these stories and not
		

			not think of them as legends of long long ago. You know, that you just long long time ago in a
galaxy far, far away. There's there's talk of slavery, the slavery still exists. There's talk of
racism, does racism still exist? There's talk of individual oppression and communal oppression.
There's, there's there's all of these different things that are highlighted in the story. Are they
still present or that's all done and we're finished with that we've moved on, much lower such an
advanced know a lot of these same problems, you know, different countries.
		

			are still struggling with them. And, again, even within our communities, I don't think it's wise for
us to always think it's somewhere outside. Are there any elements of that behavior that are
prevalent in our community right here, in our families in our households, you know, in our circle of
friends, you know, you know, even that, so the point that you're, that I understand that you're
trying to communicate is, it's not about oh, this is back then it's not about Oh, look at how
they're doing it, but more so for us to reflect on, hey, are we or am I guilty of the very things
that are being discussed?
		

			So self reflection factor, self improvement, self betterment factor that's very clear. That's what
you get when you read and study