According to the prophets, the sages, and the kabbalists, the redemption from Egypt is considered the prototype of the historical process.
This amounts to a fundamental innovation compared with other conceptions, both ancient and modern, of human history.
Some historians regard the course of human history as a path of decline, from the Garden of Eden to this world, which is becoming increasingly difficult and harsh.
Others regard history as a directionless and purposeless cycle of growth and withering.
To be sure, the Jewish worldview maintains that mankind began in the Garden of Eden, from which it was thrown into this world, with all of its distress and suffering.
But this worldview also maintains that there is great hope for mankind, that ultimately the redemption will come, and with it the solution to the world’s questions and suffering.
This is a vision of a world that will ultimately reach not only the Garden of Eden but even higher.
–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz