RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL:TALMUDIC DISCOURSE:PASSOVER,EXODUS,MOSES' SPIRITUAL AWAKENING

RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL : TALMUDIC DISCOURSE: PASSOVER, EXODUS, MOSES' SPIRITUAL AWAKENING 

 

Shalom Talmudim:

 

It has been posited that the whole of Genesis is to lead our people to commit the sin against their brother Joseph, to eventually get the clan of Israel, into Egypt, and into slavery. This slavery would eventually have them yearn for liberation and acceptance of Torah.

 

Hence Moses, a Levite son of the Israelite clan, with an Egyptian name, grew up in the house of Pharaoh, as a prince of Egypt. The Torah has to have him have an national  awakening and identify with his people. Hence the verses of Exodus 2:11-15, has Moses refer to his fellow Israelites as ''brethren'' twice, and for the first time Moses actually sees their burdens and suffering.

 

He sees an Egyptian, most likely a taskmaster beating a fellow Hebrew, and Moses kills the Egyptian. But first the Torah tells us he looked both ways to see if there were any witnesses. And he saw 'no man.' Was this murder, or was this defending someone against a rodef? Certainly, he broke Egyptian law, but did he break what would become Talmudic law?

 

Be that as it may, the next day, he saw two Israelites quarreling. And he went to bring peace among the two. And in language found no differently than from some of our congregants today, he is told ''Who appointed you judge over us? Are you going to kill me too, they way you killed the Egyptian?'' Its is always easier to take another's inventory than to look at our own defects. This passage is foreshadowing Moshe Rabbanu's on-going struggle with his people, many of whom are ingrates and stiff necked, and remain so today, disrespecting our own rabbis.

 

The Midrash is apologetic for Moses. It states that he could tell that this Egyptian was not going to be one who in the future would convert to the cult of the Hebrews and hence his life could be taken. Rashi said Moses did not strike him but uttered G!d's four- lettered name. The Midrash also states that Moses learned why the Jews were in bondage and that is because they quarreled with one another, and gossiped about one another and undermined one another.

 

Indeed the entire book of Genesis is a story of Hebrews living without Torah, albeit we are told our patriarchs learned Torah in the 'tent of  Shem.' We see the absence of Shalom among families and strife among brothers, and a string of lies and jealousies bringing about bloodshed and the eventually descent into bondage in Mitzraim.  On a lower level, but any less cruel, can we still see such behavior in our synagogues today from those undevoted to G!D and Torah's teachings?

 

So Moses is  now aware that his deed is known and he must escape. Indeed the Torah says Pharaoh learned of Moses' murderous act and sought to kill Moses and in the next verse we see Moses safe at a well in Midian with the 7 daughters of Reuel, aka Jethro. They call him an ''Egyptian man.''

 

This could be how Moses was able to escape Pharaoh's great but albeit human power.  Moses fit into the Egyptian dress, language and customs. And as a prince, he had the currency, to bribe his way thru the desert to Midian.

 

Of course the Talmud Yerushalmi gives a more spiritual answer.

 

When Moses fled from before Pharaoh, all Pharaoh's people who were there
were incapacitated: some of them mute, some of them deaf and some of them blind.

When Pharaoh said to those who were mute, "Where is Moses?", They did
not speak. When he asked those who were deaf, they did not hear.

When he asked those who were blind, they did not see.

This demonstrates what the Holy One Blessed be He said (at the burning bush
when Moses protested that he had a speech impediment), "Who gave man a
mouth or who makes him mute (Exodus 4:11).  (Talmud Yerushalmi  Berachot 87a)

God renders the Egyptians unable to answer Pharaoh's questions.  Thus,
when God tells Moses at the burning bush that He is the one that gives people
the power to speak, to hear and to see, Moses has already experienced this for
himself.

 

The Exodus story needs a  major horrid capital crime, an unforgivable crime from Pharaoh's point of view, for Moses to escape Egypt. He leaves as a 40 year old man and returns as wise spiritually  fit 80 year old man. He has had time, 40 years,  just as the Torah gave the entire Hebrew people 40 years to shed their Egyptian ways, to shed his Egyptian princely ways, to become humble. The Torah and Talmud call Moses the most humble man who ever lived. He did not learn humility in the court of Pharaoh. He learned it in the desert herding and caring for sheep. G!D needed a shepherd for His flock of Israel and Moses fit the bill, just as young David the shepherd was right for this job as well 500 years later.

 

Any other crime that Moses did could have been forgiven by Pharaoh as Moses was a prince and above almost every Egyptian law. Protecting a Hebrew slave was treason.

 

Passover is a holiday that celebrates freedom of the Hebrews from Pharaoh. Our first commandment as free people was the mitzvah of being in charge of our own time and setting up our own calendar. Slaves do not have control over their time. Free people do. Yet as free people today are we slaves to our clocks? Do we squander the gift of Shabbat while we play soccer mom, or work for our fancy homes, and automobiles, forgetting that G!D always gives us what we need, and not what we think we want?

 

Passover is a holiday in which Matzah is a central figure on our Pesach table and Seder. The sages remind us to search for Chumetz, leavening in our homes, the day before the holiday. But this is more than looking for crumbs of bread. We are to take the time to get the Chumetz out of our lives. What is Chumetz? It is the puffed up egotistically selfishness that separates us from our fellows and from G!D. We are to strive to be like Matzah, humble, unpuffed, without ego, and at one with G!D and our fellows.

 

This humbling passage from our Talmud reminds us of just who we are and what we are:

 Our Rabbis taught:  There are three partners in [making] a person, the Holy
One, blessed be He, his father and his mother. 

 

His father supplies the semen of the white substance out of which are formed the child's bones,
sinews, nails, the brain in his head and the white in his eye.

 

His mother supplies the semen of the red substance out of which is formed his skin,
flesh, hair, blood and the black of the eye.

 

And the Holy One, blessed be
He, gives him spirit (ruach) and soul (n'shamah), beauty of features,
eyesight and the power of hearing, and the ability to speak and to walk,
understanding and discernment. 

 

 When his time to depart from the world
approaches, the Holy One, blessed be He, takes away His share and leaves
the shares of his father and mother with them. (Talmud Bavli Tractate Niddah 31a)

Proverbs teaches that all wisdom comes from the awe and love of G!D. The Pesach Haftarah has Ezekiel forecasting G!D reconstructing  the dry bones of the dead and placing skin on them, and blowing sprit and soul into them, and bringing them to life. Indeed this is how Adam, made from adamah, clay, was formed, and how Moses died, with G!d's kiss, sucking out his soul and spirit.

 

Without G!D were are but Homo Sapiens. With G!D we are Homo Spiritus. With G!D we are beautiful, in His image, with the powers of discernment, to truly see and to truly hear, and to truly use our powers of speech to bring about Shalom between our fellows and to speak Emet, the truth. Without G!D we are like  a dead Golem, a lump of clay, looking human, but with 'Met', (death), clearly stamped on our foreheads. With G!D we are spiritually awakened. Without G!D, we live in a nightmare of resentments, loshan ha ra, coveting,  selfishness, dishonesty, and fear.

 

Shalom:

RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL

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