He Grew Up-Twice!!
The Jewish nation was born in Egypt. The entire book of Breishit is about a family or clan. It’s a prelude to the development of our people. On the other hand, in Shmot after only seven verses we’re talking about the Land of Egypt being ‘filled with them’. And two verses later Pharaoh is discussing measures to be taken against the ‘nation of the Children of Yisrael’.
One might think that from this point on our text will read like great histories of nations. These texts tend to be impersonal and even cold. Often they view the nation as an impersonal conglomerate. But after some more verses about Egyptian national policy against our ancestors, our text gets very personal, again. We breathlessly follow the saga of a single baby who escapes the Egyptian national murder of all males born to B’nei Yisrael.
This anonymous baby only gets his famous name upon becoming ‘grown’ (perhaps ‘weaned’, 2:10). From this point until the nation stands on the banks of the Jordan, we follow the exploits of Moshe. For our people even ‘national history’ follows the exploits of inspired individuals. We are unable to disentangle the deeply personal from the national.
So, is this newly named Moshe ready to stride onto the great stage of history? Not yet. He has the proper background, Hebrew DNA forged and adapted in the mighty halls of Egyptian royalty. But his entry into the crucible of leadership also required personal growth. Which brings us to the critical verse: Some time after that, Moshe grew up (matured, became a man) and he went out to his brethren, and he saw their burdens (hard work, forced labor, struggles, verse 11).
This is the crossroads where Moshe chooses greatness. When he witnesses the torture of an Israelite slave, the twice ‘grown’ Moshe chooses compassion, virtue and, ultimately, greatness. He strikes down the Egyptian taskmaster. The die is cast. Moshe has begun his path to nobility and, ultimately, immortal fame.
This path will have many twists and surprises, but it has become inevitable. Prof. Umberto Cassuto describes it:
In that act, Moses showed his spirit, the spirit of a man who pursues justice and saves the oppressed from their oppressors, a spirit of aspiration for freedom and of heroism to rise up against tyrants. A man who has this spirit in him will be worthy of becoming the emissary of God to save Israel from the slavery of Egypt.
According to Rav Avraham Yehoshua Heschel, only after Moshe witnesses and reacts to the suffering of our people do we read: The Israelites were groaning under the bondage, their cry for help rose up to God. God heard their moaning…God looked upon the Israelites; God took notice (2:23-25).
God only ‘took notice’ after Moshe reacted to the brutality. Heschel famously said that our Tanach isn’t our theology; it is God’s anthropology. We must see our partnership with God. It is the relationship of Moshe and God which teaches us this.
But there’s another issue we must understand. The story of the persecution began when the Jews had been objectified. They weren’t seen as individuals, human beings. They had become a nation; they were no longer a family. In families there are mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, individuals! Nations are faceless abstractions. It is relatively easy to hate or persecute a mob, or a nation.
Most (if not all of us) have been told by Gentiles that we’re different, not like other Jews. I remember as a kid getting ready to board a bus with a friend who was searching feverishly for his bus fare, and blurted out, ‘Oh, I have to give the Jew his money!’ I was shocked! But this ‘friend’ had no problem with the incident. When I confronted him about his attack on me and my people, he just said, ‘Oh, you’re different!’
Of course, I was different. He knew me. It is easy to hate faceless, anonymous ‘others’. My suburb of Boston was very mixed, racially and religiously, and I foolishly, or naively, thought that that would militate against bigotry. Not at all! One just differentiated the unknown ethnics from the ethnics they actually knew.
The story of the persecution begins when the descendants of Avraham had lost their individuality. They became the ‘nation of the Children of Yisrael’. As Rav Ya’akov Beasley wrote: Shmot begins with the names of the children of Israel who accompanied Jacob to Egypt. As Yaakov’s family transforms into a nation the names and sense of individuality disappears, all the easier to persecute. The daughter of Pharaoh had no problem raising a Jewish baby, because she knew him. There was a name which she could put to a face.
I remember when a famous Rav declared that the ‘keynote’ of Judaism is ‘Discipline!’ I actually thought at the time that it was a great answer, but I was young and relatively newly frum. I was still trying to get the hang of keeping all the rituals, and ‘discipline’ seemed very important. But I think that Moshe’s experience is teaching us a very different answer to that question.
Rav Heschel explained it well:
When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion—its message becomes meaningless.
Moshe’s first actions and words are about compassion. He is the future shepherd of sheep, then people. He sees individuals who need our help, concern, empathy.
So, it makes a lot of sense that our first experience with Moshe Rabbeinu, our greatest leader and teacher, is an amazing display of sensitivity and concern for an oppressed individual stranger. Only then was it time for God to check in on our ancestors, and notice that it was time for the GEULAH!