Starting with the Book of Exodus (Shemot)- and throughout the following three remaining books of the Torah- the figure of Moses is the guiding force. He is, in fact the single most central figure in the TaNaKh.
“The Hebrew midwives disobey Pharaoh. His own daughter thwarts him, and her maidens assist. This Egyptian princess schemes with female slaves, mother and daughter, to adopt a Hebrew child whom she names Moses. As the first to defy the oppressor, women alone take the initiative which leads to deliverance.”
“…we cannot ignore the possible inclusion of the expulsion of the Hyksos in the source materials which was available for literary activities. One may assume that the Hyksos experience was retold in different ways and in different circles through time. This is not to say that the Hyksos experience should be identified with the story about the Israelites living Egypt. However, the Hyksos event could have been part of the … common tradition which the biblical narrator used for background […] exodus and the consequent wanderings in the wilderness are part of a historical chain of happening and traditions […]”
“The four centuries in Egypt pass without a tale worth telling. As with much of Israel’s desert period and the later Babylonian captivity, the Bible considers this sojourn devoid of noteworthy events.”
This kind of historical “blackout” has driven critics to ask: “What was God doing during those years the Israelites suffered under the Egyptians?”
Notwithstanding its shortcomings, Israel is still one of the Middle East’s rare functioning democracies, with an intense public debate. Its press is combative and free. Moreover, a significant layer of intellectually and politically active people steers public discussions toward the core issues of its society.
Without the TaNaKh, there is no Judaism possible. In large part because of the energy that Zionism has reawakened, Jewish scholars in universities in Israel and the United States are closing the gap between non-Jewish and Jewish biblical scholars.