We’d all like to teach the world to see

There is a puzzling story in this week’s portion, Shemot, which occurs just as Moshe is ready to return to Egypt to set his people free. When Moshe stops at a small inn before the last leg of the journey home, G-d actually attempts to put him to death!

After 39 verses (Exodus 3; 1-4: 19) where G-d convinces Moshe to leave Midyan and accept the mission of bringing the Jewish people out of Egypt, Moshe accepts and, taking his wife and children with him, sets forth on the journey south, back to Egypt. Suddenly, just as he has nearly arrived at his destination:

“And it was, on the way, in the inn, and G-d encountered him (Moshe) and desired to kill him. And Tsiporah took a rock and cut the foreskin of her son … And he [it?] abated [let go] from him [Moshe].” (4:24-26)

What of Moshe’s mission? And what has Moshe done wrong to warrant this wrathful decree from G-d?

The Talmud (Nedarim 31a) suggests that Moshe had not yet circumcised his newborn son (Eliezer) and was being held accountable now, because previously they had been journeying and one does not perform a circumcision if one will be forced to travel for fear of endangering the health of the baby. However, now that they had finally stopped at an inn, there was no reason to delay the circumcision, and the decision not to do this immediately was what nearly got Moshe killed.

Rebbe Yossi in the Talmud suggests that once Moshe and his family arrived at the inn, he could have performed the circumcision, but instead busied himself with the details of their stay (“Nita’sek Ba’Malon”), hence G-d’s severe reaction.

But again, the consequence hardly seems warranted by the infraction.

The Maharal of Prague suggests that this inn was the first stop on the journey. Moshe now had the time to stop and fulfill his obligation to circumcise his son, because the mitzvah he had been given by G-d was not to actually arrive in Egypt; the mitzvah was to leave Midyan.

Indeed, after G-d finishes telling Moshe to go to Egypt, Moshe goes back to his father-in-law in Midyan.

“And G-d said to Moshe, in Midyan: ‘Go, return to Egypt’.” (4:19)

Despite the clear mission from G-d, Moshe was still in Midyan! The point, therefore, was for Moshe to get out of Midyan. Thus, the first safe place to stop, activated the obligation for Moshe to circumcise his son. Which leaves us with this question: Why, according to the Maharal, is the mission focused on departure (from Midyan) rather than on arrival (in Egypt)?

It is interesting that society always focuses on results, but Judaism concerns itself much more with the process. The arrival is thus not as important as the journey.

In the first conversation G-d ever has with a Jew, He tells Abraham: “Lech Lecha” (Genesis 12:1) “Go” towards the land I will show you, and this is a theme that permeates Judaism.

Judaism suggests that we are all on a journey, and if you think you have arrived, you will never get there.

It is interesting that even today, three thousand years later, we celebrate the Exodus from Egypt, and not the entrance into the land of Israel, because it was the decision to leave, and more importantly, to let go of, Egypt, that was ultimately the point at which the family of Yaakov became the nation of Israel.

Indeed, the Tzidkat HaTzaddik (Rav Tzadok HaKohen of Lublin) points out that despite verses to the contrary, we don’t really eat Matzah on Passover to commemorate the fact that we didn’t have enough time to bake bread before we left Egypt. After all, G-d planned the Exodus since the dawn of creation; He could certainly have allowed some time to bake Challah!

In fact, the Jews were given the command to celebrate a festival for seven days, and eat matzah, a week before they actually left Egypt (see Exodus chapter 12, and specifically verse 15, where G-d commands the Jews to eat Matzah a week before the Exodus….)

Rather, suggests the Tzidkat HaTzaddik, the message of the Matzah is that every once in a while a window of opportunity presents itself, and you realize you have the chance to ‘get out of Egypt.’ We all, in the end, have our own personal Egypt we are trying to leave behind. When you have such a window, you have to grab it, because it doesn’t last forever. And this was why G-d arranged for the Exodus to be in such a hurry (“Be’Chipazon”: “in a hurry” see 12:11), because you have to grab the chance to leave Egypt behind; the door doesn’t stay open forever.

Sometimes, we are blessed to realize we are in our own Egypt, and maybe we are even lucky enough to get that urge, that desire to change, to move on and get out. But do we grab the opportunity?

Even Moshe, in Midyan, was getting perhaps, a little too ‘Midyanized.’ Hence, he was still in Midyan with his father-in-law, despite having been commanded by G-d to go to Egypt. It was hard to leave Midyan, and that was the first thing Moshe had to accomplish. To be Moshe, and accomplish all that he was meant to accomplish in this world, perhaps Moshe had to get out of Midyan.

Rabbi Yossi suggests that Moshe was not held accountable for delaying circumcision, but rather that he was “Nita’sek Ba’Malon”: that he was occupying himself with the details of the hotel.

If Moshe has time to make sure there are towels in the room, while Jewish babies are being used to build pyramids, something is wrong. Something has happened to the Moshe who left Egypt forty years earlier.

At the beginning of Moshe’s life he has clearly learned how to see.

“And in those days Moshe grew, and went out to his brethren, and saw their suffering. And he saw an Egyptian man beating a Jewish man, of his brethren. And he turned this way and that and saw there was no (other) man, and he hit (slew) the Egyptian and buried him in the sand.” (2:11-12)

Growing up a prince in ancient Egypt might have been akin to growing up in the home of Adolph Eichmann in Berlin in the 1930s. It is therefore incredible that Moshe would go out and actually see the suffering of his fellow Jews, much less that he would do something about it. Moshe is ready to become a leader of the Jewish people because he has learned to see, which means to really empathize with and feel the pain of the Jewish slaves around him, even while he himself is still ensconced in the palace.

But, having gained the ability to see or feel others’ pain, Moshe must leave Egypt and the palaces wherein he resides, and experience his own pain; his own exile. And this, too, is part of the development of the leader who will ultimately lead the Jewish people.

And forty years later, the stage is set, and the redemption is at hand, when Moshe arrives with his family at a motel just outside of Egypt. And something is wrong, because while Jewish blood is being spilled in the streets of Cairo, the leader of the Jewish people is worrying about sheets and towels. And if Moshe cannot be the leader who will take the Jewish people out of Egypt, then there is no purpose to his being in this world, and he must move over for the real Moshe to come.

Maybe this is why Moshe has to get out of Midyan: life has become too comfortable. What, after all is Moshe’s life? He is out in the wilderness with his sheep, and not a care in the world. But perhaps life is a little too grand, and maybe it is time to go back, and feel the pain of his people. In fact, one wonders whether this is part of the message hidden in G-d’s first words to Moshe:

“Take the sandals off of your feet..” (3:5) A strange opening line when considering that this is the moment G-d introduces Himself to the man who will redeem the Jewish People and bring the Torah into the world.

Perhaps G-d was telling Moshe: “don’t be so comfortable.” The essence of Jewish ethics is the development of sensitivity for one’s fellow human beings, and the ability to see every person as a vehicle for the image of G-d in which he or she was created. In fact, this is the “reason” the Jewish people ended up in Egypt in the first place. Because if ten brothers could sit down and have lunch while their brother languished in a pit, then something was dreadfully wrong.

Perhaps we are all a little too comfortable these days, sighing as we view the line at the bank, or the impending transit strike, while people in Africa are starving to death.

Egypt represented a place where people don’t see; it was a land of darkness, where people did not see their fellow human beings. The Jewish people came into the world with a mission: to teach the world to see.

Sensitivity is all about recognizing that we are all one, and learning to feel someone else’s pain as our own. Indeed, only when Moshe is saved from near death, does he understand what it means to be saved.

May G-d grant that we all merit the extraordinary privilege of learning to be there; really be there, for one another wherever we are, so that one day soon we can all leave our Egypt behind and be together; really together, in the land we call home.

Columnist@TheJewishStar.com