What if Moses went to a psychotherapist?
Let us imagine an unlikely scenario. Let us imagine that, towards the end of his life, Moses seeks psychotherapy. He really wants to figure out all of his demons – and, for that matter, all of his angels. He wants to understand all the things that made him Moses.
For the moment, we will ignore the fact that psychotherapy did not exist in 1400 BCE (or thereabouts), and that eventually a descendant of one of the tribes would invent psychoanalysis.
Let us imagine that Moses is in the therapist’s tent. Perhaps he is even lying on an ancient version of the couch. Let us imagine the therapist speaking to Moses in a thick Viennese accent: “So, Moses, please tell me about your childhood. Was it a good childhood?”
Moses thinks for a moment, and says: “There really isn’t much to say. Frankly, I don’t think that much about my childhood.”:
The therapist pushes him. “Tell me about your father.”
Moses says, “It’s funny that you ask that because I didn’t really have a father. Well, yes, the Torah will say that his name was Amram, but I never knew him.”
“That must have been very difficult for you. Did he die before you could know him?”
“I really don’t know. Look, Doctor, let’s be clear about something here. My mother, Yocheved, puts me into a basket. It floated down the Nile. Pharaoh’s daughter saw the basket. She took me from the river. She adopted me. And now that you mention it, while I have heard the stories about how my mother Yocheved actually nursed me when I was an infant – I don’t know. She disappeared as well. Never heard from her.”
“So, about your father…?”
“That’s the whole point. I didn’t have a father!”
“What about Pharaoh? Wasn’t he your adoptive mother’s father? Wouldn’t he have been a surrogate grandfather?”
With this, Moses becomes visibly agitated. “A surrogate grandfather? Are you kidding me? The old guy tried to kill me! He put his crown and a hot coal in front of me to see which one I would choose – to see if I would become a threat to his kingdom. I reached for the crown, and an angel came and moved my hand to the hot coal, and I picked it up, and I burned my fingers, and I put my fingers into my mouth, and that was how I burned my mouth, and that was how I wound up with this speech impediment!”
The doctor continues. “So, you had no father figure. You had a father hunger in you, and you had someone in your life who fulfilled that paternal role for you.”
A tear rolls down Moses’ cheek. “Yes, I guess that would be Jethro. He was a priest in Midian. Jethro gave me a home. He taught me a trade – to be a shepherd. He gave me his daughter, Zipporah, in marriage. He taught me how to look at something so deeply and with such focus that I could notice that a bush burning in the wilderness was not being consumed by flame.”
“Jethro saw that I was getting burnt out, judging all of these cases for the people. He advised me on how to cure my incipient burnout. So, yes, he was my father figure. Just look at the text for this week’s Torah portion, and how it says over and over about ‘Moses’ father-in-law.’ That’s what it says about Jethro, over and over. It’s as if the Torah cannot stop referring to that relationship.
The doctor nods. “Yes, no other relationship in the Torah gets the scribal ink like the one that you had with Jethro. True, he was not your father. But he was your father-in-law. As Naomi will someday be the mother-in-law of Ruth, who will also join the Jewish people, or at the very least attach herself to this people.”
At this point, Moses is weeping.
“But, may I say one more thing, Moses?” the therapist asks.
“The father hunger thing – it goes way beyond you needing a father figure. You created a religious culture that centers itself on Adonai. How will future Jews think of him?”
Moses thinks for a moment and says: “Avinu malcheinu.”
“Yes!” says the therapist. “But, after your experience with Pharaohs, wouldn’t you say that you are a little tired of the malcheinu piece? That leaves Avinu – our father. You created a religion that focuses, for better or worse, on a Father God.
“There’s your father hunger, writ large, Moses,” the therapist said. “Yes, someday, Jewish mystics will imagine a maternal presence as well — the Shekhinah.
“But for the moment, stay with me.I’m suggesting that you invented the idea of a Father God because you hungered for a father. You found that father in Jethro. And you crafted a religion that would call out to a God that would be the parent to your people, and to all peoples, who was the parent that Jethro was to you. A parent who is patient, and who teaches, and who inspires, and who makes you want to be better, and who gives you ideals towards which you might aspire.”
Moses stopped crying. He paid his fee (insurance did not cover that, nor would it ever), and he left the therapy tent.
For the first time in his life, he was whole.