Shabbat Shmot  20 Tevet 5768, Dec 29, 2007

Efrat, Israel – Why was Moses chosen to lead the Hebrews out of Egypt? And if, indeed, it is because he fearlessly slew the Egyptian taskmaster, does Moses’ greatness lie in his concern for the people of Israel or is there a dimension of concern for universal humanity within Moses which sets him apart from all others? And finally, does the Bible only concentrate on pointing out the evil of the oppressor, or does the Bible also express the character flaws which likewise plague the oppressed, the enslaved, albeit through no fault of their own?

First things first. The Bible catalogues three acts of injustice and oppression against which Moses takes action: Egyptian against Hebrew, Hebrew against Hebrew and Midianite against Midianite. Clearly Moses fights injustice whoever happens to be the oppressor, whomever happens to be oppressed. Moreover, a careful scrutiny of the text will even further demonstrate Moses concern for universal humanity. “And it came to pass in those days when Moses was grown up, and he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian person (ish) smit¬ing a Hebrew person (ish). . . And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw there was no person (ish), he smote the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand.” (Ex. 2:11-12)

Clearly, the proliferation of the word ish seems superfluous. In the Hebrew language, Egyptian can stand alone for an Egyptian person as can the noun Hebrew mean a Hebrew person. Therefore the additional ish must come to emphasize the fundamental humanity which Moses saw both in the Egyptian as well as in the Hebrew.

Furthermore, But After Moses turns “this way and that way,” the text again uses the word ish, but this time informing us that he did not see an ish, a person. Conventional wisdom would have it that Moses looked to see if anyone was watching when he was about to kill the Egyptian. However, on the second day, when he goes out and finds two Hebrews fighting, Moses castigates them for their behavior, and one counterattacks Moses, asking, “Who made you our prince and judge. . . Do you mean to kill us as you killed the Egyptian?” (Exo¬dus 2:4). Apparently either Moses was not looking about too carefully (highly unlikely), or our interpretation is found wanting.

Rashi comments that when Moses, prior to killing the Egyptian, looked “here and there”, he wasn’t looking to see if any Egyptian was watching who might report his action to Pharoah, but he was rather looking into the future, to make sure that he wasn’t about to kill some¬one from whom a great person was destined to emerge.

Another explanation invokes the principle of the Ethics of Our Fathers. “In a place where there are no people, strive to be a person” (Mishna Avot 2:6).

Moses was hoping that perhaps someone else, who wasn’t from the palace of Pharoah and for whom there would be less risk if he were discovered, might step forward and slay the taskmaster. But unfortunately there was no other person ready to act, so despite his high status, he had to live up to this challenge.

However, I believe that by building upon our initial interpretation, we will discover the truest meaning of the verse. Remember that the passage in question added the superfluous word ish three times, but then concludes, “he smote the Egyptian without the word ish. Why not?

The Netziv (Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin, 1817-1893) explains that the Hebrew language pos¬sesses four basic terms for the human being: Adam, Gever, Enosh, Ish. The highest is the word ish literally a persona, an individual of stature, a personage. Indeed our Sages tell us that wherever there is an uniden¬tified ish, in the Torah, we should know we’re speak¬ing about an angel (Gen. 37-15 and Rashi ad loc).

In the first verse, Moses saw two people, a Hebrew and an Egyptian. They started out as special people, each a personage within his own ethnic group. However as a result of the situation he found them in, one oppressing and the other being oppressed, upon more careful scrutiny he realized that neither one of them was an ish, a personage, neither the person who was doing the smiting – because he was acting in a cruel fashion and thereby diminishing the image of the Divine within himself – nor the individual who was being smitten – because his integrity as a free and capable child and partner of G-d has been compromised.

Tragically, the beaten wife believes she is worthy of being beaten, the raped woman feels guilty and the oppressed nation feels unequal and unworthy. As James Baldwin put it so well, I can forgive the whites for treating the blacks in an inferior manner, but I cannot forgive the whites for making the blacks feel that they are inferior.

The challenge in Israel today is to be strong enough never again to suffer as the smitten, sensitive enough never to abuse that strength and wise enough to pre¬vent situations in which we smite any weak individual unfairly. Only then can our primarily civilian army hold onto its human integrity and emerge as an army of “persons,” and only then can we hope to lead the world to a G-d of justice and compassion.

Shabbat Shalom
Shlomo Riskin
Chancellor Ohr Torah Stone
Chief Rabbi - Efrat Israel

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