Burning Bush

The Burning Bush is the central religious and spiritual symbol of Mary Antin's memoir, a biblical image of divine presence that she reinterprets to express the enduring, unmediated relationship between the Jew and God that survived even the harsh conditions of the Pale of Settlement, and which she later finds transformed in her American life. The image, drawn from the story of Moses, serves as the title of the book's eighteenth chapter and recurs as a touchstone for understanding both the inherited faith of her fathers and the new forms of wonder she discovers in America. It is the flame that never went out, the light that guided her people through darkness, and the lens through which she understands her own spiritual awakening.