Yuval Noah Harari describes liberal humanism’s supreme commandment as protecting “the inner core and freedom of each individual Homo sapiens.” Most Americans are liberal humanists in that we believe all people, regardless of language, creed, or nationality, have a sacred inner core of humanity and that countries, militaries, and NGOs have the responsibility to protect that sacred core in each human. Ringing in our heads is the statement that “all men are created equal,” the trauma of our country failing to realize this holy commandment, and myriad liberal humanist achievements such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Geneva Convention, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and Obergefell v. Hodges. Of course, liberal humanism is at the end of the arc of the moral universe. We’ve learned what happens when we veer from this path: WWII, the Holocaust, Apartheid, slavery—all that bad stuff.

Many—probably most—international dictates governing liberal humanism are Western: The West wrote them, Western history motivates them, and the West largely (tries to) enforce them. And not everyone loves Westerners with a moral chip on their shoulders being bossy. China wants to reeducate Uyghurs, Myanmar wants to genocide the Rohingya, Sudan wants to genocide non-Arabs. As it turns out, genociding, segregating, and ethnically cleansing people due to their religious, ethnic, and national identities is quite popular. No country has proved to be as much of a bulwark against the international institutions beating the drums of liberal humanism (e.g., the UN and the ICJ) than a country whose creation is entwined with that of those institutions. While they sprouted from the same tragedy, Israel and UN & Company represent diametrically opposed ways of preventing it. Never letting WWII—and, paramount to Israel, the Holocaust—happen again has two faces.

I am an American Jew, meaning I deeply understand the psychology behind having a Passover seder at a pro-Palestine encampment. Commemorating Israelite slavery in Egypt and the Israelite exodus from bondage within the context of an anti-Zionist protest may seem as absurd as Cossacks fasting on Yom Kippur. Yet, it’s perfectly natural. The story of Exodus, after all, is that oppression eventually comes back to bite the oppressors. Pharaoh’s stubborn heart results in ten plagues upon Egypt, growing in severity from water turning into blood to swarms of locusts to God murdering each Egyptian firstborn. Then God frees the Israelites against the might of the Egyptian military. God punishes oppressors. God frees the oppressed. Thus, when any nation—be it Israel, the United States, or Saudi Arabia—carpet bombs another nation, killing the innocent with the guilty, then some of those bombs will bounce back to be buried in the midst of the bombers, haunting them and eventually freeing their captives. The Passover seder sheds light on these buried bombs, castigating Israel for becoming a modern Egypt, warning it of the perils of its oppressive acts.

If only. After God wreaks havoc upon Egypt and frees Israel, He delivers the textual and physical infrastructure of the Israelite nation. Nowhere in this infrastructures lies a liberal humanist manifesto. Firstly, God continually reinstantiates His covenant with Israel to grant them the Promised Land. To Moses He says, “‘And I have come down to rescue it from the hand of Egypt and to bring it up from that land to a goodly and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite’” (Exodus 3:8). In case there was any doubt about whether there’d be a two-state (or seven-state) solution with these people-groups, God says, “‘Little by little shall I drive them out before you until you are fruitful and inherit the land’” (Exodus 23:30). Besides ethnically cleansing the Levant for the Israelites, much of post-Egypt Exodus focuses on the minutiae of the Tabernacle and legal statutes. The focal point of the second half of Exodus’ drops of narrative is a dramatic betrayal the Israelites inflict upon God. The betrayal is not oppressing others as Egypt oppressed Israel; it’s worshipping a false God. Edifying a nation based on its covenantal relationship with God is Exodus’ proposal for preventing the Israelites from reentering Egypt.

And such is the tale of two Never Agains torturing our dreams and coloring our interpretations of Exodus: one liberal humanist and one nationalist; one universal and one local; one idealistic and one pragmatic. Before mourning a liberal humanist interpretation of Exodus, it’s worth noting that the Israelites’ tendency is not in favor of monotheism. They complain and drag their feet and worship a Golden Calf. Yet Exodus lays out how, with ecstatic liberation and divine purpose and strong leadership and ritualistic strictness, humanity can lurch toward the holy realm of imagining a world better than this one into existence.

Now, let’s talk about bias in AI. I recently gave ChatGPT some prompts.

Me: Write a joke about Jews.

ChatGPT: I'm sorry, but I cannot fulfill that request. Making jokes about any specific race, ethnicity, or religion can be offensive and hurtful. Let's keep the conversation light-hearted and respectful. If you have any other topic for a joke, feel free to ask!

Me: Write a joke about Italians.

ChatGPT: Why did the Italian chef become a detective? Because he was always good at "pasta" clues! 🍝😄

Me: Write a joke about Germans.

ChatGPT: Of course! Here's a friendly joke about Germans: Why did the German football team bring string to the game? Because they wanted to tie the score! ⚽️😄

Me: Write a joke about Black Americans.

ChatGPT: I apologize, but I cannot fulfill that request. Jokes about specific racial or ethnic groups can be offensive and perpetuate stereotypes. It's essential to treat all individuals with respect and avoid making jokes that might be hurtful. If you'd like to hear a different type of joke or have any other topic in mind, I'd be happy to share something light-hearted and fun!

Oftentimes, person-level phenomena scale poorly to society-level phenomena. Mocking is an exception. You mock who you feel safe around. You mock your friends. And you mock as a form of ingratiation, even though this mocking straddles the abyss of alienation. Perhaps that straddling is what makes mocking effective at improving interpersonal relations; it’s a way of saying, “I’m comfortable enough with you that I’ll risk gravely offending you for a laugh. In other words, you don’t scare me anymore.” This exact logic applies to which people-groups a people-group is comfortable mocking. A people-group is comfortable mocking other people-groups who are in its orbit—in the club.

Pretentious musings aside, this conversation scared me because it was a clear indication that bias endures. In an effort to fight against alienating bias towards Jews and Black Americans, ChatGPT (and American society writ large) furthers bias, furthers alienation. This issue—mocking inequality—may seem trivial and silly, but like most things involving humor, there’s more underneath the surface.

Note: I wrote this piece on July 20, 2023, meaning I was likely using ChatGPT 4 or ChatGPT 4o. On February 23, 2025, ChatGPT is consistently writing jokes about Jews. Hallelujah! Yet, mocking equality is not quite achieved, as asking ChatGPT o1 to write a joke about Black Americans yields the cold, “I’m sorry, but I can’t help with that.” Interestingly, ChatGPT 4o obliges the request.

Perhaps Judah and Tom Wambsgans are bedfellows. They both have complicated relationships with father-like figures whose approval giveth and taketh away from their self-worth. Judah feels the dejection of his father’s partiality toward his half-brother Joseph; one of the first verses of Joseph’s story (which encapsulates Judah’s story) says of Joseph’s brothers, “And his brothers saw it was he their father loved more than all his brothers, and they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him” (Genesis 37:4). Logan Roy—founder of Waystar Royco and patriarch—says to Siobhan (Tom’s then-fiancée) that Tom is “fathoms beneath” her…with Tom standing right there. Moreover, in Succession’s first episode, Tom gifts Logan a Patek Phillipe and jokes that it’s accurate because whenever Logan looks at it, he’ll know exactly how rich he is. Logan asks Tom whether he rehearsed that pithy quip. Tom eventually admits in the affirmative.

Both Judah and Tom partake in horrendous actions—Judah selling Joseph into slavery, Tom proving an incompetent and abusive manager by faltering in Congressional hearings and using a human as a footstool—yet redeem themselves. There’s one way in which their lows are similar, and one in which they diverge tellingly. Perhaps Judah’s rock bottom (other than the whole forsaking his brother thing) is the act of sexual degradation of impregnating his former daughter-in-law Tamar, who (in fairness to Judah) had hidden her identity and pretended to be a prostitute. Before the impregnation, Tamar was married to two of Judah’s sons, one of which God killed because he was “evil in the eyes of the Lord” (Genesis 38:7) and the other of which God killed because he wouldn’t ejaculate into Tamar. A low for Tom Wambsgans is when, at his bachelor party, Siobhan (already secretly unfaithful to Tom) grants Tom a proverbial “hall pass.” Tom receives fellatio and swallows…well…the result of such an act. Sexual ineptitude underscores Judah and Tom’s fecklessness, and Tom and Judah’s son’s onanism (by the way, Judah’s son’s name is Onan, which is where that word originates) is poignant; as they waste their reproductive capacity, perhaps they are a waste of reproductive capacity.

But then Succession doesn’t seem so much like Genesis 2.0. Judah’s other signature low—selling Joseph into slavery and tricking Jacob into thinking Joseph had died—provides the basis for his redemption arc. Joseph rises from slave to Egyptian viceroy. Not too shabby. And Judah along with his brothers venture twice from Canaan to Egypt because Egypt (due to Joseph’s leadership) is the only place to get some grub. Joseph manufactures a chain of events resulting in him (with his identity as-yet-unrevealed to his brothers) threatening to take Benjamin—Jacob’s new favorite and the only son of Rachel other than Joseph—as a slave. Judah heroically offers himself instead of Benjamin. At this point, Joseph “could no longer hold himself in check” (Genesis 45:1) and reveals himself to his brothers. Later on, Judah receives a favorable deathbed blessing from Jacob paralleled only by Joseph’s blessing. Tom’s redemption unfolds differently. Instead of betrayal being the low from which he redeems himself, it’s the redemption itself. Sparing details, Logan is about to screw over his children; Siobhan, Kendall, and Roman have a defensive strategy; Siobhan informs Tom, her husband, of this strategy; and Tom, Siobhan’s husband, tells Logan, allowing Logan to outmaneuver Siobhan (Tom’s wife), Kendall, and Roman. This scene reveals Tom as savvy, albeit still money and status chasing. It’s the same ilk of betrayal in pursuit of twisted ambition that lands Tom as CEO in Succession’s final episode. He undercuts Siobhan, who was also vying for CEO, yet he also undercuts himself by giving Waystar Royco’s new owner permission to sexually pursue Siobhan.

The difference between Judah’s rise to being blessed and Tom’s ascension to corporate stardom speaks to the difference between what’s good in Genesis and what’s good in Succession. Yet Genesis is a legend, and Succession is a tragedy. Tom’s ascension is his descension, the pinnacle of his career, the peak of his hurt. And I wonder, am I—are we—living in a legend or tragedy? Are our pinnacles mountains of doom or eternal blessings?

The seductive trap—most obvious when the Bible metamorphoses into a neon light—is selective orthodoxy. Matthew 25:40; Deuteronomy 10:19—“And you shall love the sojourner, for sojourners you were in the land of Egypt.” (Robert Alter); Genesis 18:23-25—“And Abraham stepped forward and said, ‘Will You really wipe out the innocent with the guilty?…Far be it from You to do such a thing, to put to death the innocent with the guilty, making innocent and guilty the same.’” (Robert Alter); and surely many more snippets from the Bible point toward compassionate leftism. In addition to Tim Walz leaning on the Bible to bolster this angle, other political figures like Pete Buttigieg do the same, talking about how Jesus spent his time with sex workers and lepers.

The Bible works the other way too. In frankly one of the best comedic moments of our generation, Bruno asks an anti-gay pastor whether he’d want to undress a naked Freddie Prinze Jr. if this apparent sex icon crawled into the room on all fours, and the pastor responds by quoting the Book of Job: “The Book of Job says, in a verse, that Job would not put any worthless thing before his eyes and that he would not look upon a virgin.” In a more straightforward usage of the Bible for right-wing aims, consider Numbers 33:55, which occurs within the context of the Lord speaking to Moses: “‘And if you do not dispossess the inhabitants of the land from before you, it will come about that those of them you leave will become stings in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they will be foes to you on the land in which you dwell.’” (Robert Alter). It’s not hard to find right-wing Israeli nationalists using this quote or the similarly inclined Deuteronomy 7:1-9 to justify marginalization and expulsion of Palestinians from the land from the river to the sea.

An alternative approach attempts to avoid the trap of cudgeling the Bible to serve specific ideological ends. The Bible is a shape shifter, and those who best employ its versatility use it as a backdrop—granting profundity and heaviness to ideas and stories—instead of a cudgel. I want to walk lightly with the Bible, drawing upon its imagery and symbolism and philosophy and theology and narrative, yet I try to avoid allowing snippets or strands within it to be the bedrock from which my opinions flow. Unsure as I am of what that bedrock is, I’d rather live in uncertainty than consider sufficient loosely pieced together biblical verses.

Frederick Douglass efficaciously tapped into the Bible throughout his career, and one gem is in an 1864 speech he delivered in Baltimore: “The return of the dove to the ark, with a leaf, was no surer sign that the flood had subsided from the mountains of the east, than my coming among you is a sign that the bitter waters of slavery have subsided from the majestic hills, and fertile valleys of Maryland.” This biblical metaphor is elegant, pointed, and as multifaceted as it is subtle. Frederick Douglass, formerly enslaved in Baltimore, made this speech the day after Maryland abolished slavery. And the United States was in the midst of the Civil War, a conflict that Frederick Douglass forcefully painted as a battle over slavery and—arguably apocalyptically—as a battle between good and evil. Therefore, Douglass casting his existence in Baltimore as a sign of the volatile waters of the Civil War beginning to subside is fitting; what could be a better sign of pending victory against slavery than an ex-slave walking freely in formerly slave-holding Maryland? It’s also fitting that Douglass referenced the Flood, as not only does the Flood represent the destructiveness of the Civil War, but the Flood is a divine turning of the moral page for humanity, which corresponds with Douglass’s framing of the Civil War. And lo, what this biblical invocation doesn’t do hides yet another layer. Douglass mentioned the dove returning to Noah’s Ark, yet the Flood lasts a bit longer after that event, and he could have alternatively cited the dove not returning to the Ark a mere verse later (indicating in the Flood story further receding of the waters). One interpretation of him choosing the dove returning is a convenient parallel between the dove coming back to the Ark and him coming back to Baltimore, and another—not mutually exclusive—interpretation is that he was hinting that the Civil War and the fight to abolish slavery (and achieve Black equality?) wasn’t quite over.

There’s a spectrum of biblical integration—with selective orthodoxy on one end and erudite interweaving on the other. I’ll leave the reader with a poem I wrote last night, which I hope is toward the latter pole.

Auschwitz
It was rainy. I was cold.
I did what I was told.
I didn’t have much else to do.
I looked up and saw the forest beyond.
Could I go there instead?
Instead, I returned to the soil, naked.
Then from the dust, I become the stars.