Passover, Moshe Rabbeinu, and the Kanaani Cat: Humility as the Hidden Power of Redemption

About Moshe Rabbeinu, the Torah says, “And the man Moshe was the most humble of all people on the face of the earth” (Numbers 12:3). In English, this is expressed by the word humble, yet in the case of Moshe Rabbeinu, it is not merely a character trait but an inner state of being. In the Hasidic tradition, humility is expressed in everything — in clothing, in speech, and in behavior — as a path toward which a person strives; however, in Moshe Rabbeinu, it was not acquired but rather woven into his very nature, as if it were an inner code of his soul.

Thus, even what might have seemed like a limitation at first glance became his strength, for he was not a man of loud speech, did not seek to sound greater than others, did not look for a stage, and did not place himself at the center. There was a quietness within him, and in that quietness lived his humility — not learned, but inherent, like an inner law of his being.

It was therefore through him that the Divine gave the Torah to the Jewish people, not merely as knowledge or law, but as a living revelation that connects heaven and earth. The sages teach that the angels questioned how it could be that the Torah was given to a human being; yet this was not a protest of pride, for angels stand on a high spiritual level, they are pure and close to Heaven, but their service is different, as they fulfill the Divine will as it is revealed to them, whereas the human being is given a different role — to seek, to choose, and to rise — and it is precisely the human being who can reveal the Torah within the world.

Moshe Rabbeinu, with his quietness and humility, became the one through whom this revelation entered the world, and he answered the angels simply by pointing to the essence of the Torah itself: were you enslaved in Egypt, did you leave it, did you walk through the desert, do you eat matzah? Everything written in the Torah is not written about angels, but about the Jewish people, and in this recognition, the angels fell silent and agreed. It is further said that even the Angel of Death approached Moshe and revealed to him the secret of using incense for healing, teaching that when truth is accepted, even the force associated with death can be transformed into a force that serves life.

In the Talmud, nothing is stated without purpose, and if it is said that “had the Torah not been given, we would have learned modesty from the cat” (Eruvin 100b), then this carries deep meaning. The words humble and modesty are not opposites but related expressions of the same quality — inward and outward — and the cat becomes a visible embodiment of a hidden inner truth.

The cat is mentioned not only in the Talmud but also in Perek Shira, where creation itself is described as singing to the Creator. In the Talmud, we learn modesty from the cat, and in the words of Rav Pappa, it is said that homes in which cats live are protected from snakes and scorpions, echoing the reality of Egypt from which we emerged on Passover, while in Perek Shira, the cat is not only a model of behavior but a voice that sings its own song.

This idea deepens further when we consider the connection between Moshe Rabbeinu and King David, for in the Book of Psalms, written by King David, we find the words “A prayer of Moshe, the man of God” (Psalm 90), pointing to an inner connection in which Moshe represents Torah and inner depth while David represents kingship and manifestation. In the future, these two lines unite in Mashiach (Messiah), where the spiritual depth of Moshe and the royal lineage of David become one, and in Kabbalistic thought, Mashiach gathers within himself the sparks of all Israel — past, present, and future.

Within this framework, another image emerges: the lion as the symbol of the tribe of Yehuda and of the kingdom of David, from which, according to tradition, Mashiach will come. The lion and the cat belong to the same feline family; the lion guards the kingdom, while the cat guards the home, and just as Moshe Rabbeinu is connected to King David, so the cat is connected to the lion as two levels of a single reality, both serving the Divine and protecting life.

The wild African cat, Felis lybica, from which all domestic cats descend, may be seen as the “Adam and Eve” of all domestic cats, the root of all their lines, and alongside this ancient root stands the Israeli street cat, living and present on the land of Israel. The union of this ancient root with Israeli street cats, expressed in the Kanaani breed, creates a point where the ancient and the modern meet.

It is important to remember that this breed was created thanks to Doris Polachek, a woman who survived the Holocaust, who in her home in Jerusalem, perhaps somewhere on its outskirts, took in a wild African cat that was injured or ill, and alongside it cared for Israeli street cats she had also brought into her home; from this union came kittens, and thus began the story of the Kanaani breed.

In our time, the Kanaani appears as a cat of the land of Israel, bearing on its forehead the sign of the letter “M,” a symbol understood across the world and connected to the Hebrew letter mem, and this invites reflection. Egypt, with its Pharaohs, passed into nothingness; Rome, with its eagle, passed into nothingness; Nazi Germany passed into nothingness. Yet the song of Israel lives, the song of the cat lives, and the song of the lion lives, and the people of Israel remain — they are, were, and will be.

In this quiet yet living continuity, we move forward in expectation of Mashiach, and within this union, one may cautiously sense something more — a form of chosenness not as superiority, but as calling, rooted in place and meaning. The land of Israel, and Jerusalem in particular, is not merely geography but a place of origin, associated in tradition with the memory of the Garden of Eden, and thus one may reflect that just as the people of Israel carry chosenness as responsibility and mission, so too the Kanaani cat may carry within it a hint of a special connection to this land.

The sign it bears — the letter “M” upon its forehead — further deepens this reflection, not because it stands above others, but because it appears to have been given to carry that sign, a sign that may be connected to the name of Moshe and, perhaps, as a subtle hint toward Mashiach. This is not a claim, but a reflection — and within it there is a quietness, and a meaning.

Amen and Amen.