States of Exile

[Anarchists] carried a very Jewish sense of righteousness, the spirit of the Book of Exodus; they rejected the idea of a life organized in pyramids of power and status, with a few Pharoahs on the top and masses of slaves underneath. - Jesse Cohn, Anarchy in Yiddish The pyramids remain, but Egypt is enslaved to Araby. The pharaonic model of divine kingship was doomed to failure because it was based on earthly might. When a stronger model of earthly might appeared, the pharaoh's flatterers became the prophet's flatterers. The Israelites however, pledged fealty to an otherworldly sovereign that no worldly power could possibly displace. And so the temple is destroyed but Israel is free. Every circumcised penis is a message from our immortal Ozymandias to the spiritual slaves of mortal glory: look my works, ye mighty, and despair!

Truthful I call him who goes into godless deserts, having broken his revering heart. In the yellow sands, burned by the sun, he squints thirstily at the islands abounding in wells, where living things rest under dark trees. Yet his thirst does not persuade him to become like these, dwelling in comfort; for where there are oases there are also idols. - Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra Mitzrayim, the godless desert of the real.