Shemot
Exodus 1:1-6:1
Isaiah 27:6-28:13, 29:22-3
In this week’s portion, the first of the Torah’s second book, Exodus, Moses is shepherding the flocks of his father-in-law, when he meets God at Mt. Horeb speaking out of the bush that burns unconsumed.
God says, “I am the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob” (Exodus 3:6). The verse continues, “And Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God.”
The Moses we see here is radically different from the Moses we read about at the end of the Torah. Deuteronomy 34:10 says, “And there never again was a prophet in Israel like Moses who knew the Eternal face to face.”
Moses fulfills his destiny only after demonstrating deep reluctance to carry out the assignment to liberate his people from slavery in Egypt. His initial response (Exodus 3:11) is, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh?”
After God tells Moses of signs and wonders to come, Moses replies, “And here, they won’t believe me and won’t listen to my voice” (4:1).
God tries again and gives Moses miracles to perform with his staff and hand. Yet Moses replies “I’m not a man of words…I’m heavy of mouth and heavy of tongue,” to which God replies, “I’ll be with your mouth” (4:10-11).
Even then Moses replies, “Send by the hand you will send” (“Shelach nah b’yad tishlach,” 4:13).
Richard Elliot Friedman, whose translation I am citing, states that may mean “send whomever … anyone but me.” Or it may mean that Moses now acquiesces. That God is angry at Moses in the next verse fits more naturally with the former meaning.
The Jewish Publication Society translation supports this by translating the phrase: “Please make someone else Your agent.”
Reluctant prophets
Friedman states that “the reluctant prophet” is a common biblical theme: exemplars include Elijah, Jonah and Jeremiah. He asserts that prophecy “is a burden, almost beyond human endurance.”
Yet Moses does obey in the end and secures freedom and the revelation of Torah for the children of Israel.
But the journey to the land of Israel is fraught with much frustration and dissension, and, on the brink of his mission’s fulfillment, Moses is forced to turn its completion over to Joshua. It is a sad ending to a heroic life.
It also contrasts with another Jewish hero, who, centuries later, hid her face before fulfilling a mission in service to the Jewish people, but who lived to see her triumph. That is Esther, who hides her Jewish identity at her uncle Mordecai’s bidding when she enters the court of the Persian king.
Moses, too, is hidden for three months after his birth. Moses, like Esther, ends up in a foreign ruler’s court with a new identity due to the compassion of Pharaoh’s daughter who discovers him floating the basket in the river.
Unlike Moses, God doesn’t send Esther. God, in fact, is never mentioned in the book that bears her name.
When the time comes to save her people, Esther, too, is reluctant. She tells Mordecai: “Whoever … shall come to the king into the inner court, who is not called, there is one law for him, namely to put him to death, except to whom the king shall hold out the golden scepter” (Esther 4:11).
But Mordecai warns Esther, “Do not think in your heart that you shall escape in the king’s house anymore than all the other Jews” (Esther 4:13).
Esther agrees to risk her life; but in contrast to Moses, who is armed with God’s signs and wonders, Esther uses charm and stealth rather than openly challenging the king as Moses does when he says, “Let my people go.” Nevertheless, Esther attempts implicitly to connect to God when she fasts and prays and asks all the Jews to join her.
Adele Berlin cites another Moses/Esther connection in her Jewish Publication Society commentary on the book of Esther. While Passover is not mentioned in the book, “Midrash Leqah Tov … dates Esther’s fast to 13, 14, and 15 Nisan” which overlaps the beginning of the holiday.
Also according to Berlin, a midrash asserts that the Persian king’s sleepless night (6:1) occurred on the night of the Exodus; and that the execution of Haman took place “on 16 Nisan, during Passover.”
When I visited Israel last May friends and family across the political spectrum nearly universally told me that the issue most deeply worrying them was political corruption.
February’s elections will feature two former prime ministers and the current foreign minister in the wake of a discredited departing prime minister with a long political history.
Perhaps what Israel needs now is a less ambitious, even reluctant, leader like Moses or Esther, with skills and commitment deeply embedded but hidden from the surface.
Perhaps, as Mordecai stated when Esther first balked at risking her life to save her people (Esther 4:14), “Deliverance will come from another place.”
Larry Kohn is educator at Temple Beth El in Madison.
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