"Torah Lights"
 
Video Insights on the Parsha
 
 by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin

Efrat, Israel: "And there arose a new king over Egypt who did not know Joseph.” (Ex 1:8)

Reading the Biblical Book of Genesis, we explored and analyzed what made each of our ancestors worthy of the birthright and leadership of the Jewish people. Turning to the Book of Exodus, we now ask whether these conditions applied to the greatest prophet and leader of the Jewish people, our teacher Moses.

The first and most essential condition of leadership is the characteristic of tzedek, or more correctly tzedakah: as G-d says explaining the election of Abraham to be the bearer of the covenant: "Since I have known [loved, chosen] him in order that he may command his progeny and his household after him to guard the way of the Lord and to act in compassionate justice and morality…" (Genesis 18:19). Tzedek is justice; tzedakah is compassionate justice, i.e. justice co-mingled with love. (Deuteronomy 24:13)

The second condition for birthright eligibility is a sense of responsibility to the Abrahamic family. The bearer of the birthright must have a profound sense of loyalty to past generations, loving concern for the entire family and a deep commitment to transmitting our covenantal values and lifestyle to succeeding generations, “in order that he may command his progeny and his household after him.” Preserving the family physically and spiritually against attack and assimilation also requires securing the homeland for successive generations.

When we analyze the towering personalities of the Bible through the prism of these criteria, we can recognize the outstanding qualities of Moses that enabled him to be elevated to become the master prophet of the Lord, the supreme transmitter of the content of the birthright in the form of G-d's Torah to His firstborn child, Israel.

Joseph, although brilliant and charismatic, creates tension when he brings evil reports about his siblings to his father (Gen 37:2). Furthermore, he does not "reach out" to his brothers with sensitive concern when he acts as "the shepherd towards his brothers among the sheep" (ibid), and seeks to lord over them through his dreams of majesty and cosmic subjugation. Finally, although we can understand his lack of communication with his father and family when he is a slave and prisoner in Egypt, when as the Grand Vizier of Egypt he confronts his siblings seeking food, his harshness is more troublesome.

The other major contender for the birthright was Judah. When Tamar misleads him by playing harlot, he still has no problem in declaring that, "She is more righteous than I" (38:26).  In so saying, he emerges the model of consummate righteous compassion.

Judah also unifies the entire family by taking responsibility for the fate of his younger brother, first before his father, "I myself will be a responsible co-signer for him; you can demand him from my own hand… if I don't bring him back I shall have sinned before you for all eternity" (43:9), then before the Grand Vizier, when he asks to be a substitute slave for Benjamin (Gen 44:33), and finally in leading the Grand Vizier to reveal himself, so that Joseph accepts responsibility for his father and brothers (Gen 44:18-34).

Unlike Joseph, who is born in the ancestral home of Israel and dreams of Egypt, the foreign land to which he devotes all of his energies, Moses is born in Egypt, but expends all of his energies in taking the Israelites out of that country to bring them home to their familial land. Moses is the consummate fighter for justice (tzedek) and for morality (mishpat), risking his life to struggle against injustice wherever it rears its ugly head.

The Bible introduces Moses by recording three incidents from his early life, even before telling us of his Divine election to lead the Jewish people (Exodus 3). First, he sees an Egyptian taskmaster smiting a Hebrew, and he slays the Egyptian; then he breaks up the fight between two Hebrews, chastising the instigator; and finally, he rescues the daughters of the Priest of Midian from assault by the Midianite shepherds (Exodus 2:11-17). Moses is chosen to break the Egyptian tyranny because he fights against injustice perpetrated by Egyptian against Hebrew, by Hebrew against Hebrew, and by Midianite against Midianite.

Whereas young Joseph tried to lord over his brothers, and they responded by rejecting him and even attempting to kill him, Moses reacts very differently to his family. Although he was brought up in the palace of Pharaoh, away from his people, Moses disregards the loss of status and ultimate the exile that will result from his brotherly concern and shows consummate concern for his people. "It happened in those days, that Moses grew up, and he went out to his brothers when he saw their suffering; he saw an Egyptian taskmaster slaying a Hebrew person from among his brothers… and he slew the Egyptian” (Ex 2:11,12).

Our final contrast: Joseph as Grand Vizier in Egypt, tries mightily to forget his father and his siblings, naming his first son Menashe, "because G-d has made me forget (nasheh) all my troubles and my father's household" (Gen 41:51). Even Judah "left his brothers…" and married the daughter of a Canaanite (Gen 38:1, 2), rejecting family and the paternal, ancestral tradition. 

The very name Moses, however, means "son" in Egyptian (Ra Mses, son of the sun-god); despite personal discomfiture and derision by his Hebrew brothers for having assumed a leadership position  - "Who made you our prince and judge? … Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?" (Exodus 2:14) - Moses remains dedicated to his family, risking life and limb in order to rescue his enslaved brothers from their murderous Egyptian captors. His heart was never in Egypt: "And she [Moses' wife Zipporah] gave birth to a son, and he [Moses] called his name Gershom, because he said ‘I was a stranger in a strange land’” (Exodus 2:22).

Moses shows his beleaguered family unconditional compassion and love, despite their ongoing ingratitude and abuse. “Isn't it enough that you brought us out of a land flowing with milk and honey [Egypt] just to kill us in the desert; will you also rule, yes, rule over us?" (Numbers 16:13), is reminiscent of the charge of Joseph's brothers: "Do you want to be king, yes king, over us, to rule, yes rule, against us?" (Genesis 37:8).

Moses is introduced to us at the beginning of our Biblical portion as a proud son of Levi and he never falters in this identity (Ex 1:1). He keeps his eye on his goal of transmitting G-d's message of compassionate righteousness and morality, to the progeny of Israel for all eternity in the form of our Holy Bible.

Shabbat Shalom

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