After he was promised the land of Canaan, Abraham asked God “how shall I know that I shall inherit it?” Abraham was concerned, explained the Beit HaLevi, that his descendants would sin and God would abandon them. Therefore God replied, Know well that your seed shall be strangers in a land not theirs and they shall be enslaved and afflicted four hundred years…and afterward they shall come forth with great substance. In other words, instead of abandoning Abraham’s descendants, He would exile them for a period of time. People would live and die in exile but the promise of redemption would remain. The foundation of the Jewish experience is found in Genesis and therefore it contains that most fundamental Jewish paradigm: exile and redemption.