The Jews do. Who else but the Jews would focus their core beliefs around the memory that "We were slaves to a terrible tyrant in a powerful land, and our G-d, Master of the Entire Universe, took us out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.

"No one else claimed this story for their own. And why would they want to? Who wants to be the descendant of a slave? Who wants to believe that they were "powerless" until someone else saved them? Who wants to give all the credit to their G-d?

The story of the Jews' Exodus from Egypt has a miraculousness about it that runs counter to human practicality. That's why it's possible for people and textbooks to deny the whole thing could have ever taken place. Even if you believe in a Creator, this story is still hard to swallow. Moses himself forecast this incredulity when he said, "Ask the previous generations, from the time the world was formed . . . was there ever such a thing in the world . . . that G-d would take a nation out of another nation with signs and wonders and all sorts of miracles . . . ?"

this story is supposed to sound impossible...because it goes against what the human mind likes to imagine

Great minds disagree. Einstein protested, "True, things should be made as simple as possible — but no simpler!" Good ol' Albert was only echoing the sages of his Jewish heritage who, in so many different ways, declared the same call for empiricism. As Maimonides put it, "Opinions don't affect reality. Reality makes opinions."

These men, however, are the exceptions. For most of history, man imposed hierarchy everywhere, even on gods and nature. The Ultimate, Big G-d who made everything had to be at the top, very far away from it all, so as not to get His "pristine ultimateness" sullied by this mess He created. Lesser gods took care of the forces of nature, and the lowest ones dealt with mundane human crises (assuming the humans involved could deliver a top-notch bribe).

An Infinite G-d is everywhere, precisely because He is Infinite and unbounded

This is Judaism: the meeting between the finite material world and Infinite G-dliness. While others search for G-d up on high, we find G-d in the woolen strings hanging from our clothes. We find G-d in the light of a wax candle and in a cup of wine. We find G-d in the sound of children's voices reading His Torah.

We find G-d in the crunch and swallow of a Matzah on Passover night. We find G-d in a simple story about a group of slaves liberated from a powerful land. We find G-d.

Tzvi Freeman is the author of Bringing Heaven Down to Earth / 365 Meditations of the Rebbe.