- There’s a call ...
- For me?
- Not specifically. It’s more of a cry, really, a crying out.
- A cry? A crying out? Well ...
- You’ve been expecting it ...
- I have?
- Yes, for four hundred-odd years.
-Oh ... that’s quite a while! Wonder what kept them? I better go down.
-------------------------------
Na'aseh v'nishma.
At the beginning of Shemot these words are a long way off. Here it is words and names that come first, what is said more important than what is done.
Who are you? What's your name? What if they don't believe me? Why me? Send someone more eloquent, I stutter!
Moses is a skeptic, impressed by the pyrotechnics, but not by God's words. In exasperation God gives him magic tricks to perform to make believers out of his own people.
They've been cut off too long. It is not only Pharaoh who doesn't remember Joseph. Year in, year out they bear the drudgery and abuse, because in spite of all the hard work they keep having children, lots of children, with their hosts fearing that they will rise up from the earth and swarm over the land like locusts.
They're uncomfortable there in the narrow place, that Mitzraim, but they're not desperate. When they have finally had enough, they don't pray to Ribbono shel olam, they don't ask for help from the God of their fathers, they just cry out like animals, their wailing rising on a cloud. They are ready to believe when there are no consequences, but when their hard labour becomes even harder, they again refuse to have anything to do with this god.
And Moses?
Would it have made a difference if he acted in self-defense or in a sudden outburst of righteous anger when killing the Egyptian? We know he has a temper, it trips him up again and again, as when he strikes the rock to make it give water, when he wants proof by seeing this God....
But this is not what happens. Before he beats the Egyptian to death he looks around to make sure that no one is watching....
Comments
Post a Comment