ª Word from Our
Archbishop: Some Thoughts on “Tribalism” by His Eminence, The Most Reverend MICHAEL, Archbishop of New York and the Diocese of New York & New Jersey
T
he time is the 13th century B.C.; the scene is Egypt. The people alongside Moses in the story of liberation from Egypt are often called “Hebrews” (e.g. Exodus 1:16, 1:19, 2:6, etc.). This term seems connected with the name “Apiru,” given to peoples in extra-Biblical documents found in the Near East, dating from the 18th to the 11th centuries B.C. The “Apiru” or “Hebrews” were wanderers, nomads, with no homeland—settling within or just outside developed lands where they might obtain food, water, and work. These stateless foreigners
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had no rights in the land where they attached themselves. Egyptian texts tell how some of these “Apiru” were pressed into service by pharaohs to build temples and fortresses. We meet these forced laborers in the Book of Exodus’s accounts of slavery and oppression. The Twelve Tribes of Israel
The Hebrews descend from the Old Testament patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (renamed “Israel”) and his 12 sons—Reuben, Simeon, Levi,
