Doubt and Resilience: Unraveling the Two Faces of Moshe in Shemot
By: Rabbi Jordan Silvestri, Head of School
With Sefer Bereishit in our rear view mirror, we turn to Sefer Shemot highlighted by the story of Moshe’s leadership and the formulation of the covenant between Hashem and His people. The upcoming Parshiot represent some of the most well known sections of the Torah as they forge the story of the Haggadah read at the Pesach seder. We could simply reread these sections as we have every year beforehand. However, with 2024 just beginning, why not take on a resolution to revisit familiar texts of our liturgy in the hopes that it can share with us insights that we had not gleaned from previously?
Thus, we come back to Moshe as a fledgling leader of the Jewish people. There seems to be two different versions of Moshe that we are presented with. One that shows up before fleeing Egypt and the other when the Jewish people are in need of a leader to save them. The first Moshe, or Moshe 1 for our purposes, is one that reacts to injustice, does not sit on the sidelines as a bystander:
וַיְהִ֣י ׀ בַּיָּמִ֣ים הָהֵ֗ם וַיִּגְדַּ֤ל מֹשֶׁה֙ וַיֵּצֵ֣א אֶל־אֶחָ֔יו וַיַּ֖רְא בְּסִבְלֹתָ֑ם וַיַּרְא֙ אִ֣ישׁ מִצְרִ֔י מַכֶּ֥ה אִישׁ־עִבְרִ֖י מֵאֶחָֽיו
And it was after many days that Moshe grew up and went out to his brothers [people of Israel] and he saw their suffering. He saw the Egyptians hitting his Jewish brothers.
Moshe, seeing the cruelty of the Egyptians towards the Jews, steps up, stands tall and takes significant action. He is not afraid of the consequences, he does not wait for permission and he does not ask himself if he is worthy of this charge. Yet, that is not what we see from the Moshe at the burning bush, or Moshe 2:
וַיֹּ֤אמֶר מֹשֶׁה֙ אֶל־הָ֣אֱלֹהִ֔ים מִ֣י אָנֹ֔כִי כִּ֥י אֵלֵ֖ךְ אֶל־פַּרְעֹ֑ה וְכִ֥י אוֹצִ֛יא אֶת־בְּנֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל מִמִּצְרָֽיִם
And Moshe said to Hashem, “Who am I that I should go to Pharoah and that he would let the Jewish people leave Egypt?”
Moshe 1 is the hero, fearless in the face of danger, unwilling to allow injustice of any kind to exist in his orbit. Moshe 2 is timid, afraid, weary of his value and worth and willing to use every trick in the book to get out of this call to action from Hashem. Rashi explains that after countless efforts to shirk his responsibilities and in the face of every retort and proof that Hashem offered, still, Moshe refused. This final refusal angered Hashem, ultimately bringing in Aharon, Moshe’s brother, into the fold as the Kohen Gadol, High Priest, a role originally designed for Moshe as well.
What changed for Moshe 2 to be a shell of himself, of Moshe 1? Doubt was introduced into the equation. When doubt is introduced, often we begin to question everything, even those items that we know are true. Worse if those doubts come from within the fold.
After Moshe stood up for his fellow Jew in the face of Egyptian oppression, he soon found himself faced with a similar dilemma, this time between two fellow Jews. He raised his voice, interjected and called out the questionable behavior. I do not think he was ready for the response:
וַ֠יֹּ֠אמֶר מִ֣י שָֽׂמְךָ֞ לְאִ֨ישׁ שַׂ֤ר וְשֹׁפֵט֙ עָלֵ֔ינוּ הַלְהׇרְגֵ֙נִי֙ אַתָּ֣ה אֹמֵ֔ר כַּאֲשֶׁ֥ר הָרַ֖גְתָּ אֶת־הַמִּצְרִ֑י וַיִּירָ֤א מֹשֶׁה֙ וַיֹּאמַ֔ר אָכֵ֖ן נוֹדַ֥ע הַדָּבָֽר׃
[The Jews replied] ”Who placed you as ruler and judge over us? Are you going to kill us as you killed the Egyptian?” Moshe became scared and stated, “Now, the matter is known.”
Moshe stood up for his people to protect them and call out the suffering they were enduring. He thought, as no one else was making their voice heard, why should he not? He certainly was worried about how the Egyptian people would respond. He never considered the possibility of his fellow brothers and sisters to question his actions. As a result, he was hunted for being his true self and forced to flee the only home he knew.
Moshe 1 and Moshe 2 are not two different people. They are the same person responding to a sense of insecurity that lives within each and every one of us. We strive to find purpose, meaning and fulfillment in our lives AND for those around us to act in a manner that affirms our self definitions. When they do not, especially from within our camps, our entire psyche and personality makeup comes to a tumble. We do not know who we are, where our place is and that which has always been a source of comfort to us is now foreign.
Moshe 2 was still very much impacted by this encounter that no promise or offer of support from Hashem was going to be enough for Moshe to be convinced of his worth and abilities. He needed to live those moments, as we will see in his interactions with Pharoah, to regain the faith in himself that he once had.
As we read Sefer Shemot and all of the beautiful character development and story arcs, let us take a moment to realize that responding to injustice, standing for your values and holding others accountable is a frightening undertaking. It takes a strong individual to withstand the response from the outside world. Whether it is a friend who is making a poor choice toward another, someone at work crossing an ethical line or it is ourselves being honest with our own accountability - these are all moments that question every fiber of who we are now and who we will become after.
Let us learn from Moshe’s approach to standing for what is right and his desire to acquire those elements of himself even after he had lost them.