SHEMOS 1994

In the Torah portion Shmos we learn how Moshe Rabbeinu is chosen to be the instrument of G-d in saving the Jewish people from Egypt.  Moshe is a prototype of the Mashiach, of the Messiah, who is just a man who will announce what G-d is going to do, just as Moshe announced the plagues before they happened but it was G-d Who made the ten plagues.  So the Messiah, too, will announce what G-d is going to do.  It is very strange, though, that G-d chose Moshe to be the saviour of the Jewish people from Egypt.  After all, he was a man who did not spend one day in slavery, who was raised as an Egyptian in an Egyptian court.  According to the Medrash, he was the conqueror of Abessinia and appointed to be the next ruler of Egypt when, because of his compassion he went out to see the Hebrew slaves and he learned that he was actually one of them, and when he saw one Egyptian attacking a Jew beating him mercilessly he slew the Egyptian.  Later the next day when he found two Jews quarreling he could not understand it, and the Jews answered him roughly and said, "Are you going to kill us like you killed the Egyptian?" Then the Torah says, "Surely this thing! is known," and the rabbis say Moshe was not afraid that Pharaoh would find out about what had happened but now he has an answer to his question as to why it is that the Jews were persecuted so much because they could not get along with themselves, and, therefore, he fled saying, "They are not a people worth saving."  Moshe, though, had two characteristics.  One was that he was very compassionate.  When he came to Midian and saw that the daughters of Jethro were being put upon, here they had drawn the water, filled the troughs, and the other shepherds were pushing them away and taking the benefit of their labor, he interceded and he pushed away the shepherds and allowed these girls to benefit from the works of their labor.  He also married outside the faith.  He married the daughter of a pagan priest, and, according to the Medrash, he agreed to raise his first child as a pagan in order to marry Tzipporah, but this is the man that G-d chose to lead the Jewish people.  What's more, he became a shepherd and a shepherd was the lowliest of all positions in the Jewish world.  In fact, even in the Halacha there are certain disabilities that a shepherd endures because he has not developed to be completely honest, and here G-d chose of all people, of all professions, a shepherd.  How did G-d choose Moshe? How did He first appear to him? Did He appear to him in a vision? Did He appear to him in a dream? Did He just suddenly come into his mind? No, he appeared to Moshe in a burning bush.  Why should He have appeared to Moshe in a burning bush?

We know that G-d chose Moshe because of his great sense of compassion and also because of his intellectual curiosity.  When Moshe saw that this bush was not consumed he said, "I will turn, please, and I will see this great vision, why this snare, this bush is not being consumed." And the rabbis, of course, note carefully that the word snare and Sinai are really the same word, and they say that this bush that Moshe saw was actually growing on Mount Sinai.  The secret of Jewish longevity is because we have been imbued with the ideals of Sinai.  Moshe was astounded that here was this rugged bush, which most people identify with the Akaisha, who struggles to exist in a dry, arid climate and yet it was burning and burning and was not being consumed.  When G‑d saw that he turned to see and He called to him from the midst of the bush and said, Moshe, Moshe," and he said, "Here I am."  And G-d said, "Don't draw near here to this place.  Remove your shoes from on your feet because this place which you are standing upon it is holy ground." It seems strange that G-d would appear to Moshe in this way and He would tell him to take off his shoes, but, of course, what do our shoes do?  Our shoes protect us from the rocks and from the insects and the dirt of the earth, and when we take off our shoes we feel the rocks and the pain and the trouble of the world, and Moshe could only save the Jewish people if he could feel the pain of the world, if he could feel the pain of the Jewish people, and that is why he had to remove his shoes.  The whole secret of the burning bush was to teach Moshe that it was the very emotions of the Jewish people, their love and enthusiasm for the Torah and for the ideals of our forefathers which is going to preserve the Jewish people throughout all ages.  It was that fire that caused that bush to endure and to stand.  Without that fire the bush would have given up to the arid elements around him.  We know and I hope that all of you have seen that movie "Schindler's List" that the Jewish people have survived all persecutions despite all harassment despite all bestiality which has been directed against us we have survived, and we have survived because of the inner enthusiasm and fire which we feel for our Jewish ideals.  It is this fire, itself, which has allowed us to maintain ourselves in the most arid environments in which we have lived, and that, of course, is the story of " Schindler's List"', too.

It teaches us two things, that the great love of the Jewish people for life that we wanted to maintain life and to stay alive so we could propagate G-d' s ideals, and the second thing is that the world needs these ideals.  Here the Holocaust was begun and carried out by the most intellectual nation in Europe, the most civilized nation, the nation which gave us the greatest musicians, the greatest philosophers, which had the most advances in science, a nation Which was in the forefront of the intellectual efforts of the western world.  It was not some backward country like Bulgaria or Romania.  It was at the forefront of all scientific endeavor.  It was that country which produced Bach and Beethoven and Brahms, the three B's, which are still the bulwark of any symphony's repertoire.  It was this country that produced the Holocaust.  It just shows that the Jewish people have to stay alive because Judaism's ideals have still not filtered down into the world.  If they had, then this Holocaust could never have happened.  What's more, Moshe was being taught the importance of interpersonal relationships in this particular way of G-d appearing to him, that G-d' s relationship to man and man's relationship to each other must be an emotional relationship.  It must have fire and enthusiasm in it.  It must have passion in it, but it must be passion that is constrained, passion which does not destroy and passion which is limited by the branches of this burning bush.  Emotion is what is needed in order to carry us forward, but it cannot be a passion which destroys.  We have seen so many times that people get involved in good causes and these causes consume them and consume others and they end in violence.  They do not end in love and harmony and peace and fellowship.

This is why also it says here that "you are standing on a holy place".  The same word for "holy" is the same word for "marriage'" in Hebrew, Kedushim because in order for us to maintain a wonderful relationship we have to have that passion but that passion has to be constrained so that it does not burst out and consume the people who have this relationship.  Later on in the Torah portion we learn what it is really that is necessary in order to solidify a relationship, a relationship which is based on passion and love but which also is constrained so it does not consume its participants.  It says later after Moshe Rabbeinu had returned to Yisro and told him that he was going to go down to Egypt where the people who had sought his life were now dead it says that Moshe took his wife and his children and he rode them on the donkey" .  The rabbis explain that this donkey was the same donkey that Abraham Used when he went to the Akedah when he bound Isaac, and that this donkey is also the donkey that the Mashiach is going to ride on when he comes.  Of course, the reason for the symbolism of the Mashiach riding on a donkey is a donkey is a peaceful animal.  It is a slow and trudging animal, a stubborn animal who persists in spite of everything.  It is not a horse, ~though, because a horse is a man of war who charges, who is used in the battlefield but who does not have the staying power of the donkey.  He is not a peaceful animal as the donkey is a peaceful animal, but, what's more than that, the word Chamor in Hebrew also means material things, that Moshe put his family above material things.  In order to have a wonderful relationship it cannot be based on property because if the property disappears the relationship will disappear unless it is based upon these other qualities.  It must be based upon the quality of sacrifice and that, of course, is what the Akedah symbolizes where Abraham was willing to sacrifice Isaac and Isaac for Abraham.  You have to be willing to sacrifice for a relationship.  A man has to be willing to sacrifice for his wife to give his paycheck to his wife.  He has to be willing to sacrifice his time and spend time with his wife A wife, too, has to be willing to sacrifice.  She has to sacrifice in order to have children.  After all, she has to take off from her career.  It is going to affect her figure, and she, too, has to sacrifice.  Unless a couple is willing to sacrifice one for another then the marriage cannot exist.  The second element is compassion.  Moshe went down to Egypt to save the Jewish people.  You have to feel each other's pain.  If you cannot feel each other's pain then you cannot have a relationship.  In fact, there is a famous Chassidic story that says, how can you tell when somebody really loves you? You can tell when they love you when they feel your pain.  When you feel the other person's pain, when you empathize and sympathize and you want to try to alleviate it, then that shows that you really love the other person.

Finally, the donkey stands also for the Mashiach.  A marriage must be based on integrity, rim values.  It must be based on the idea that the family unit is trying to make this world a better place, that because it is trying to make this world a better place it has to have integrity and trust.  Anytime there is not trust in a marriage that marriage cannot endure.  Marriage is based upon sacrifice.

It is based upon compassion.  It is based upon trust.  If it has these three elements then it can exist.  Then it can endure, but if it is only based upon property then it will never endure.  There is a famous story they tell about a man who lost his principle and his girlfriend lost her interest.  Marriage, too, has to be based upon love.  You have to have love, passion, which brings you together, but the passion can consume you and destroy you unless it is contained by these principles of sacrifice and compassion and trust.  If it is contained by these things then you will see that your marriage will flourish and grow and bloom and that you will have a wonderful, wonderful life together.  This applies to relationships throughout the spectrum of the human condition.  The same thing applies to our relationship with our government, with out institutions.  We must be willing to sacrifice for them.  We must be willing to be compassionate toward them, by supporting them with our means and by being there to help, and we must also engender a feeling of trust.  We must have integrity and honesty otherwise the institutions will not flourish either, but it is essential, it is crucial that when we have a relationship with another human being or even .a relationship with G-d that it be based upon these three principles.  A marriage cannot endure, nothing can be holy, nothing can have Kedusha, holiness, unless it is bound by sacrifice, compassion, and integrity and trust.  Let us all hope and pray that all of our relationships will have these three things so that certainly they will endure so that the.  Mashiach will truly come quickly in our day.  Amen.