Go Down, Moses

Overview

In the story of Moses, as recounted in Exodus, there is something inherent to the essence of our time. The prophet of monotheism is presented as a man reacting to the difficulties that this God—without name and without image—poses before him, beginning with the abandonment of his newborn body in the waters of the Nile. At the same time, "Go down, Moses" evokes the famous spiritual song of the black slaves of America, who identified with the Jewish people, as a foresight of their return to Africa. The Israelites, capable of returning from the Babylonian exile and—thanks to Moses—freeing themselves from slavery in Egypt, were the symbol of their coming liberation, just as that song of the American slaves can now signify the condition of our own disembodied slavery, exiled from being. Everything in between is the object of this work.