they re trying to get through that patch. and god stopped their chariot wheels. so the sea came crashing upon them and they all drowned on the command of moses staff. reporter: 12-year-old samara schaub has been studying this story as she prepares for her bat mitzvah. and it s also the story that jews commemorate every year during the passover seder. these words have so much meaning, and this song in particular is really symbolizing our freedom because this is the song that they sing once they were free. az yashir moshe people of african descent were singing these spirituals based on the story of moses. wickedness a while may reign. satan s cause my seem to gain.
and from that bush comes the voice of god. reporter: and according to tradition, that miraculous bush is still right here today. there s the burning bush. and what is the structure around it? well, it had to be enclosed when the area was engulfed with pilgrims. and people would come and, what, try to take bits away? yes. like a relic. that s why it s sort of prund at where a person could reach. father justin tells us that st. catherine s, one of the oldest monasteries in the world, has been protecting the bush from relic-hungry pilgrims for more than 15 centuries. are you convinced that this is the burning bush? we believe that the first christians who came here picked up this living tradition, that this is the place where god revealed himself in such an extraordinary way. reporter: according to the bible, it was at that very moment that god first revealed his name, yahweh. in hebrew it means i am who i
his government is inflated. he runs it according to corve, according with forced labor. he s married or marrying hundreds of wives and hundreds of concubines, who as the bible say took his heart astray. reporter: the wives solomon took tone hans ties with foreign kingdoms turned him to their idols and eventually corrupted his own relationship with god. and the story of solomon s downfall is an interesting window into the religious practices of the early israelites. people worshiped many gods. you could pick them up. you could see them. you could pray to them and expect that they would have effect. this wasn t the judaism that we know today. archaeologists have found evidence that the israelites worshiped idols before david and until the time of jesus. there are those who say i suspect somewhat metaphorically that we still worship false idols, whether it s, you know,
when they were marching in tahrir square, what was great was here was freedom that was born in the soil that had come back to the soil. what the moses story stands for is that the power is with the powerless. we had no guns. we hardly had a vote. we had no money. the only power that we had was the moral high ground and god. i shall be free someday coming up, just minutes from now, the ten commandments. what really happened on that mountaintop? and what do you find when you climb sinai today?
brethren, the israelites, were still enslaved by the pharaoh, building his grand palaces and temples. after many years of suffering, the bible says, they were fed up and began to grown and cry out to their god. you know, jews have been at the forefront of almost every social justice movement of the 20th century. when you look at, you know, the civil rights marches, there were very often jews in the front row and second row. and i think there s a straight line from that groaning in the story of the exodus to that. the idea that we speak up. reporter: it seems god heard their cries. the bible says that moses, who was living in peace and quiet, then got the surprise of his life. and everything s peachy keen. until one day he notices a bush that seems to be on fire and yet it s not consumed.