SHEMOS 1991

In the Torah portion Shmos we learn how Moshe Rabbeinu was chosen to be the leader who would take the Jewish people out of Egypt.  It seems strange that Moshe was chosen.  After all, Moshe never spent a day of his Life in slavery.  Moshe never endured the overseer's whip.  Moshe was raised as an Egyptian and, according to the rabbis, when he saw how the Jews were fighting among themselves he even gave up on the Jewish people and said, "Now I understand why the Jewish people are enslaved.  Surely the thing is known."  He then fled to Midian and he even intermarried.  He even married a girl with the condition that their eldest son should be raised as a pagan.  Moshe seemed a very unlikely candidate to be the redeemer of the Jewish people from Egypt.  In fact, the rabbis say that Moshe Rabbeinu was not buried in the land of Israel.  We can understand why he was not allowed to go into the land of Israel, but why wasn't he buried in the land of Israel, the same way that Joseph's bones were buried in the land of Israel?  The rabbis say because when he helped the daughters of Jethro the daughters of Jethro went back to their father and said an Egyptian helped them.  They did not say a Jew helped them, and Moshe never corrected them.  Moshe was not interested in putting forward his Jewish identity.  Yet, G-d chooses who G-d wants to choose, and G-d chose Moshe Rabbeinu.  And Moshe Rabbeinu when he was chosen at the burning bush demurred.  He did not want the job.  He said, "Choose somebody else," and he went through all the arguments why he should not be chosen, but G-d told him, "You are my choice."  He said he did not speak the language and that he stuttered, and G-d said He would send him Aaron.  He said they would not believe him, and G-d gave him signs, etc.  When the encounter with G-d at the burning bush was over Moshe still did not say yes.  After the encounter it says, "And Moshe went and he returned to Yesser, his father-in-law, and he said to him, "I will go, please, and I will return to my brothers who are in Egypt and I will see are they still alive' ."  He did not say he was going to go to Egypt to try to save the Jewish people.   He said he would go to see if his family was still alive.  Jethro says for him to go in peace.  Then G-d said to Moshe that all those people who are seeking your life are now dead.  Then Moshe took his wife and his family and he rode them on a donkey and stopped at an inn.  There we learn that G-d sought to kill him.  It says, "And it was in the road in the inn and G-d met him and He wanted to kill him, and Zipporah took a flint and she cut off the foreskin of her son and she put it at his feet and said, "Because a bridegroom of blood are you to me', so He let him alone and then she said, "You are a bridegroom of blood for circumcision".  What's going on here?  G-d had convinced Moshe that he should go to Egypt, although up to this time it is not clear whether Moshe had accepted the mission, and all of a sudden when he goes on this mission, when he goes to Egypt, G-d is trying to kill him.  The rabbis are puzzled.

Some say that if Moshe Rabbeinu wanted to be a leader of the Jewish people he should at least observe the basics of the Jewish religion.  How can you be a leader and not practice any type of Judaism at all? In our own day we see that that sometimes happens.  Other rabbis say that it was because he took his family.  He should not have taken his family.  G-d sent him on a very dangerous mission and he was endangering his family.  G-d did not like that.  Others reject that, too.  They say that what is really happening here is that Moshe Rabbeinu is filled with an identity crisis, a crisis which is making him sick, just as many Jews in America have an identity crisis, too.  They do not know if they are Jewish or American or what they are and it drives them crazy.  Here Moshe Rabbeinu did not accept the mission to go redeem the Jewish people, but his curiosity was peaked so he said he would go see if his brothers are alive.  When G-d told him that the people who tried to kill him are dead he said, "Well, it is safe enough to take my family." Then G-d said "He would give him all these wonders and signs and so forth, and Moshe still was very confused."  He did not know what he should do, how he should act, how he should be.  He was filled with great conflict.   This conflict was affecting his health.  It was then that Zipporah came and told him, "Moshe, you may not know who you are but I know who you are.  I was not born a Jew and I know that no matter what you are or what you say you are, you are always going to be considered by everybody else as a Jew.  They know who you are and we know who you are, and you cannot flee your identity.  Your identity is as a Jew and the world is going to always treat you as a Jew."  What is a Jew?  A Jew is a symbol of the Ten Commandments.  A Jew is a symbol of morality.   Not all Jews live up to the morality of the Ten Commandments but to the rest of the world the Jew is a symbol of morality.  That is why Hitler said he hated the Jewish people with their sentimental G-d.  "No matter how much you try to flee from it, I know who you are, Moshe.  You cannot assimilate.  You cannot forsake your identity."

We see today in the Jews of Russia that the Jews of Russia many of them joined the revolution and thought that things were going to be hunky dory, but they learned to their regret that it was not so.  There is a very poignant story that they tell about a woman who came off a plane just this month in Israel.  She was carrying a very heavy bag and the people who met her at the airport wanted to help her with the bag, but she said they could not help with the bag because they were the ashes of her husband.  They said, "What? What is going on here?"

She said, "I know it is against the Jewish law to cremate a person, but I come from a very famous rabbinic family.  I am the granddaughter of a famous rebbe, and my husband came from a very learned family.  When the revolution came we joined the revolution and thought that a new life was coming.  In the second World War my husband was even a general in the partisans.  After the war he was made a commisaire, but we began to notice how the people were making comments, how our children could not get into the best universities, how slowly we were looked at as aliens, and in Russia you can pick out a Jew.  A Jew looks different than the Russians and Ukranians.  My husband determined that this was really not our land.  Glasnost came and anti-Semitism that had been suppressed was unleashed.   He told me it was time to leave, that we should take our children and grandchildren and leave.  We applied to leave but, unfortunately, my husband became ill.  When he was dying he told me not to leave him in Russia but to take him to his own land.  Since you cannot take a body out of Russia I had to have him cremated.  Therefore, here is my husband and here are my children and grandchildren.  We know who we really are."  That is what Zipporah was telling Moshe.  "Moshe, you do not know who you really are, but you are really a Jew and you have to help and go and save your people.  You are not just going to visit.  You have to go help them and save them because that is who you are.  Don't fool yourself.  When I married you I knew you were a bridegroom of blood, and the same word for "blood" in Hebrew also means "money", that you have other obligations and responsibilities not just to me and not just to your family but to your people, too."  Then she circumcised her son, and she said, "Not only do you have this responsibility but so does your son and so do your children.  They will always be Jews.  Go and redeem the Jewish people because you are doing it not only for yourself but for your children and your grandchildren and for Jewish posterity."

I am reminded of the story they used to tell in Russia four or five years ago, how when two Jews were talking one said to the other, "What would you do if the gates were opened and all the Jews could leave?" He said he would climb a tree.   The other asked why he would climb a tree, and he said, "Because I would have to get out of the way of the stampede of the crowd so I would not be hurt."  It may be a joke in those days, but today it is a reality.  Hundreds of thousands, millions want to leave, and we have to help them.  We have to be like Moshe Rabbeinu.  We have to assume our responsibilities.  We cannot waver and hesitate.  We have to be that bridegroom of blood and of money to make sure that our Jewish people are saved.  May they all be saved so the Mashiach will come.  Amen.