After the triumphant conclusion of the book of Genesis, the rise of a new pharaoh ushers in an era characterized by fear, distrust along ethnic lines, and the imposition of harsh labor.  Exodus 1 ends with Pharoah’s ominous decree: “Every [Hebrew] boy that is born you shall throw into the Nile but let every girl live.” (Ex. 1:22)

The story hinges on a pivotal encounter between two women, who forge a partnership that bridges across a dangerous social divide: Pharaoh’s daughter (unnamed in the text but named Bitya in rabbinic literature), and an endangered baby’s older sister (unnamed here but named Miriam later in Exodus). Centering on their process of relationship-building provides us with a model for and transforming a bleak situation into a livable one.

While the midrash imagines that Bitya converted and became part of the Hebrew people, thus providing a rationale for why an Egyptian woman would defy the pharaoh’s degree (BT Megillah 13a), for this reading I prefer to think of her as an Egyptian princess who maintained her sense of peoplehood, belonging, and spirituality within the Egyptian context. Thus, when she hears baby Moses cry, she hears not the cry of a fellow Jew but the cry of a fellow human being. When she defies her father’s decree, she does so as a person solidly located within Egyptian society. And, when Bitya and Miriam encounter and engage one another, they do not do so as sisters in the Hebrew community, but as two people connecting around common values and purpose, while maintaining their differences, including differences in power.

Like Pharaoh’s daughter, the midrash recognizes Miriam as a child of a communal leader, who displayed a courageous inclination to defy community norms. The midrash expands her heroism of accompanying her baby brother to ensure his safety to include a backstory of her challenging her father when he decreed for the Hebrew slave community that not even baby girls should be born (Sotah 12a). However, we cannot assume that Bitya and Miriam engaged each other the same way they did with their families, especially given the fraught circumstances. 

A close reading of the text of their story, told in five verses in Exodus 2, reveals distinctive features in each of their voices and postures as they approach each other and their relationship emerges. When reading texts, whether they are contemporary interview transcripts or ancient literary texts, to gain an understanding about a person or character’s inner experience, psychologist Carol Gilligan recommends listening for the verbs used by the narrator to describe each character. She advises creating a poem of just those verbs in the order they appear to gain a sense of movement of the person’s self, psyche, or spirit over time, as well as listening to the actual words attributed to each character. Through these methods, we hear how Bitya and Miriam’s voices sounded and how they postured themselves to make a connection at this precarious time.

Gleaning just the verbs from the text that the Biblical storyteller used for Miriam, we have the following poem:

Miriam’s poem consists of four verbs or actions, that are all different. Half are physical – standing still and moving; and half are spoken with two different kinds of speaking.

The Biblical text quotes Miriam’s own words to Bitya:

הַאֵלֵ֗ךְ וְקָרָ֤אתִי לָךְ֙ אִשָּׁ֣ה מֵינֶ֔קֶת מִ֖ן הָעִבְרִיֹּ֑ת וְתֵינִ֥ק לָ֖ךְ אֶת־הַיָּֽלֶד׃

“Shall I go and get you a Hebrew nurse to nurse the child for you?”

With the Egyptian princess Miriam is deferential. However, her question is not submissive but rather suggestive. Astoundingly, the enslaved girl uses no honorifics in speaking to the princess, showing none of the linguistic deference we might have expected in such an encounter. Miriam’s voice is smart, savvy, and strategic. From a disenfranchised and vulnerable position, she is navigating this distressing situation with nuance and subtle leadership. Just as Bitya does not denigrate baby Moses or Miriam, Miriam does not diminish Bitya’s humanity by vilifying her.

Listening to the poem of verbs used to describe Bitya also provides us with a window into her inner experience:

Bitya has more narrative, more verbs, and more quotations than Miriam. This poem has a major turning point: Bitya starts off actively engaged and then fully shifts to speaking. When we look back in the narrative, we see in the plot what was happening when this shift took place: it is immediately after she sees – encounters – a crying baby and one that has no one to console it. Crying is the paradigmatic communication that cuts across humanity. Bitya is not only moved by the suffering of another human being, but her compassion is resistance toward the social forces of dehumanization that surrounds her.

Bitya’s encounter with the humanity of the baby prompts her shift from acting to speaking and into relationships with multiple other people, as evident by the five times she is quoted in the text. She recognizes the baby for who he is and speaks for the first time saying, “This must be a Hebrew child.” Bitya is presumably speaking with her maidservants, with whom we had not previously heard any verbal exchange. Miriam likely hears Bitya’s acknowledgement of the baby and perhaps feels her compassion, and she then ventures to speak directly to her.  When Bitya and Miriam each say something, the text notes that they say it to the other. After Miriam offers to find someone to nurse the baby, Bitya instructs her לֵ֑כִי / “Go.” Bitya also instructs Yocheved, Moses’s mother, to care for the baby and offers her compensation. When Yocheved brings the baby back, the narrator tells us that Bitya uses her speech to give him a name. While Miriam uses her intelligence and gall to diplomatically engage Bitya and promote a recommendation, Bitya conveys a sense of command to bring the plan to action. Each woman finds agency to form their partnership.

This story illustrates two people breaking social norms, resisting the pressures of polarization. They were different in many ways – religion, ethnicity, social status, power – but they connected on a human level. Instead of operating according to a system with Egyptians against Hebrews, they were they rewrote the social structure to be a system that arrayed those who wanted to save the baby against those who did not.

As we navigate our contentious, polarized, vilifying and dehumanizing times, we can be inspired by Miriam’s boldness and Bitya’s compassion, and their courage in engaging with each other despite their differences.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).

In Parashat Shemot, it appears that Moses took conscious steps to operate as a lone bystander, taking action that seems unlikely had a larger crowd been present. Raised in Pharaoh’s household, now an adult, Moses went out to walk among the Hebrew slaves as they labored. After witnessing an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave, “He turned this way and that and, seeing no one about, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand” ().

It was only after concluding that no other witnesses were present that Moses took action. One could debate his motivations: Was he making sure that no one would observe this violent action on his part? Was he checking to see if anyone else was preparing to step in and help? Commentaries suggest the former, and perhaps this moment is a perversion of the bystander effect: Moses acted alone both because he didn’t want to be seen and because he realized there was no one else who would stop this beating.  

This is not the only time Moses’s life is altered by a decision to turn his head. After discovering that there was indeed a witness to his killing of the Egyptian, Moses fled to Midian, where he quickly (at least in the text) finds himself married to Tziporah, daughter of Jethro, herding his father-in-law’s sheep through the wilderness. One such trek brought him to the base of Mount Horeb (also considered to be Sinai), where Moses encountered a bush that is aflame, but not consumed by the fire:

“I must turn aside to look at this marvelous sight”, Moses says, “why doesn’t the bush burn up?” (3:3)

While before, when he made the choice to save his fellow Hebrew, he turned to and fro to be sure his actions would not be witnessed, this time he turned precisely in order to bear witness. And of course, it is this second decision to turn and notice that is the catalyst that launches the Exodus story and results in his leadership over the Israelite people for the next forty years.

Various commentaries seek to define the nature of Moses’s turning at the Burning Bush. Did he move closer in order to inspect this oddity? Did he step farther away in order to take in the scene as a whole? Midrash Tanhuma () relates a debate over how much Moses turned aside:

And Moses said: I will turn aside now, and see this great sight (). Rabbi Yohanan said that Moses took three steps forward [closer to the bush]. Rabbi Simeon the son of Lakish said he took no steps, but rather simply turned his neck to observe it. The Holy Blessed One said to him: Because you troubled to look, be assured you will merit that I shall reveal Myself unto you.

In other words, even the simple act of turning his neck a few degrees was enough for God to decide Moses was worthy of the prophetic messages he would soon receive, and the mantle of leadership that he would assume. It did not matter that he made a slight hesitation rather than a full detour; it was enough to open himself to an encounter that would change not only his life but the course of an entire people.

The message of this midrash is clear: sometimes a slight pivot is enough to lead to an entirely different destination, if only we will ourselves to make that shift. Twice in this parashah, Moses found this to be true. What would it take for us, then, to overpower the phenomenon that prevents too many of us from stepping off course, and to allow ourselves to turn aside, to truly notice that which is unnatural or unjust, regardless of whether or not others join us? Perhaps if we allow the unexpected to penetrate our consciousness just enough, we can throw off the identity of bystander and allow the reverberations of that tiny motion to propel us in changing the course of history.

This commentary was originally published in 2018.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).

Why, after years among people, did Moshe seek the wilderness—a solitary and desolate place? Was it for his own sake for a moment to himself, or did he go there with the purpose of finding God?

As I near the end of my journey through rabbinical school, especially as I enter my final semester, I am reflecting on how I’ve processed this experience. Someone recently asked if I journal to navigate the transition toward becoming a rabbi. Typically, my response would have been no; I shy away from that form of self-reflection. Yet, I’ve recently embraced the unfamiliar: welcoming solitude with my pen, journal, and self.

Moshe’s journey mirrors the struggles many face in navigating transitions and seeking purpose amidst uncertainty. The 19th-century Polish commentator Ha’emek Hadavar suggests Moshe intentionally led his flock to the most remote location, a place no other shepherd dared venture, seeking solitude. He needed such desolation to encounter God. While we don’t know if Moshe had his own meditation, journaling, or spiritual practices that promoted solitude, his courage and strength in recognizing the necessity of solitude are evident. Being alone doesn’t equate to feeling lonely; it can be a conscious endeavor to connect with oneself and, more profoundly, with God. Perhaps Moshe only gathered the courage to approach the burning bush precisely because of the solitude he sought, away from the chaos of family and life.

I wonder if the intentional separation from the familiar, an act often misconstrued as loneliness, was instead a purposeful endeavor. It echoes the profound truth that solitude can foster not only self-discovery but also a profound connection with the divine.

In this desolate moment, Moshe finds the strength to approach “the heart of the fire,”  בְּלַבַּת־אֵ֖ש, without turning away (Exod. 3:2). Had the fire appeared in a more crowded area, Moshe might have been concerned for others’ safety. Yet, in the vast desert, with a moment to breathe, Moshe gazes long enough into the fire to realize it does not consume the bush. Here, his leadership potential emerges: he investigates the peculiar bush, showing no fear, approaching closer, and suddenly encountering God.

Rashi teaches that God resided within this fire. Thus, Moshe wouldn’t have noticed God’s presence without his courage to move toward it. If he hadn’t sought to distance himself from the noise of society, he may never have discovered his true purpose.

Virginia Woolf described solitude as “freedom from the oppression of constant noise and distraction.”[1]  In an era dominated by incessant noise and perpetual connectivity, finding moments of true solitude becomes an arduous task. However, therein lies the irony—amidst the digital clamor, the pursuit of solitude becomes all the more valuable for inner exploration and spiritual connection.

We must view spending time with our thoughts as a deliberate internal exploration, even if it involves uncomfortable self-reflection, in pursuit of meaningful experiences. Surely, Moshe didn’t know he was destined to become a prophet, but his courage to step away and lead his flock into the wilderness was the first stride toward becoming the leader of the Israelites.

This deliberate quest for introspection, akin to the ancient solitude sought by Moshe, stands as a testament to the enduring human quest for understanding and purpose. Just as Moshe’s solitude paved the way for his divine encounter, our contemporary pursuits of journaling, meditation, or venturing outside comfort zones serve as modern pathways to self-discovery.

Italian journalist Tiziano Terzani, who spent extensive time alone in a Japanese cabin in the 1980s, taught, “The only real teacher is not in a forest, or a hut or an ice cave in the Himalayas, It is within us.”[2] Tiziano Terzani’s wisdom reverberates today, reminding us that the most profound teachings originate not from external sources but from within ourselves. The transformational power of solitude, whether in the wilderness of ancient times or the quiet corners of our modern lives, serves as a timeless beacon guiding us toward self-realization and enlightenment.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).   

[1] Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

[2] Crane, Brent. “” The Atlantic. March 30, 2017.

At the end of their gripping biography of Abraham Joshua Heschel (unfortunately chronicling only the European phase of his life), Edward Kaplan and Samuel Dresner report that he arrived in New York on March 21, 1940 aboard the Lancastria. For a moment, after reading that tidbit, I wondered if uncannily the Schorsch family had come on the same ship. I dimly knew that the month of our arrival had been March 1940. A check of my family files, however, turned up an immigration ID card for my sister that recorded the fact that we disembarked on March 27, 1940 from the Georgic. What I remember on my own of that fateful voyage is that we were all felled by seasickness.

Soon thereafter my father came to the offices of the Rabbinical Assembly at 91�첥 to apply for a job as a Conservative rabbi. He had been ordained in 1928 by the Seminary’s German forerunner, the Breslau Seminary.  He had distinguished himself as a rabbi in Hanover during the next decade and learned English as we waited in England for fifteen months for an American visa. At that time, a small congregation in Pottstown, Pennsylvania had also approached the Rabbinical Assembly for a new rabbi and invited my father to fill the post, where he would stay until his retirement twenty-four years later. In 1957 his son returned to 91�첥 as a rabbinical student and in 1986 became its sixth chancellor.

In retrospect, early events in our lives often seem to foreshadow things to come. Ever in need of order, we scan patterns for meaning. This week’s parashah offers a striking example of this. Moses’s encounter with God at the burning bush does not occur at a nameless, nondescript site. The Torah goes out of its way to mention that in seeking pasture for his flock in the wilderness Moses had arrived at “Horeb, the mountain of God” (Exod. 3:1). It will be at this selfsame site in the Sinai wilderness after the Exodus that the Israelites will receive God’s law in a public revelation (; 4:10, 15; 5:2). Long venerated as a holy mountain, Horeb is the place where Moses was first drafted and ultimately vindicated. His personal experience of God’s compassion for an enslaved Israel anticipates God’s covenant with the nation once emancipated. The shared site signals that the culmination is implicit in the commission.

In both instances, God takes the initiative to find a human partner, and this is why I began with a reference to Heschel. In 1951, some six years after moving to 91�첥 from Hebrew Union College, which had secured with great effort the indispensable visa that enabled Heschel to come to the United States (“a brand plucked from the fire of an altar to Satan on which my people was burned to death,” in his own bittersweet words), Heschel published one of the bravest theological books of the twentieth century. Man is Not Alone dared to affirm his deepest conviction that “God is not silent. He has been silenced” (p. 152).

“Man was the first to hide himself from God, after having eaten of the forbidden fruit, and is still hiding. . . ‘Where art thou?’ Where is Man? Is the first question that occurs in the Bible. It is man’s alibi that is our problem . . . God is less rare than we think; when we long for Him, His distance crumbles away”.

Man is Not Alone, 152-3

For Heschel “the Bible is not man’s theology but God’s anthropology”(p. 129), a compendium of religious experience that deals with the wayward nature of humanity from a divine perspective. In contrast to the abstract, immutable and disengaged God of the philosophers, Heschel argued for a God of pathos. The Bible reveals a God full of angst and anguish forever reaching out to an unreceptive humanity. “Philosophy begins with man’s question; religion begins with God’s question and man’s answer” (p. 76).

Thus Moses at the burning bush is a paradigmatic scene of “God In Search of Man,” as Heschel called his most encompassing philosophical treatment of Judaism in 1956. Unsettled by human defiance and depravity, God is driven to intercede, cajole, and admonish. The prophet exhibits a unique sympathetic capacity that sensitizes him or her to the turmoil of God’s inner state. Specifically, a series of four verbs in the prelude to the encounter underscores the degree to which God is stirred by Israel’s suffering (2:24-25). God turns to Moses because he has already acquitted himself courageously as a man who cannot bear to witness acts of injustice. Indeed, Moses may have been brought to Horeb by his own disquietude, triggered by news that the pharaoh who sought his life had died (2:23).

According to a wonderfully perceptive midrash, the absence of a single diacritical mark in the text points to the urgency of God’s appeal. Once the attention of Moses is arrested by the sight of a bush aflame but unconsumed, God intrudes to address him, “Moses! Moses!” (3:4). Elsewhere in the Bible, when God calls out to Abraham (), Jacob () or Samuel () by doubling their names, a small vertical line separates the two words. In our case that line is missing, which suggests to the midrash a moment of greater intensity, akin to someone staggering beneath a load too heavy for him and beseeching his friend to take it (Exodus Rabbah 2:6). Literally, a radical analogy hanging by a thread! The torment of Israel is a burden God can no longer bear alone. Moses must come to God’s aid.

In short, God pervades the world, to be discovered by us in a common shrub as easily as atop a majestic mountain. In the spirit of Heschel, another midrash speaks of the significance of God’s confronting Moses via a bush as if to say that the choice means that no place is devoid of God’s presence (Exodus Rabbah 2:5). If we fail to sense that presence or to hear God’s voice, it is because we have allowed our lives to be overwhelmed by distractions. In the years after 1945 when others wrote of God’s eclipse or death, Heschel reaffirmed the possibility of a living faith with unmatched conviction and eloquence. Even the flames of the Holocaust could not consume the bush or obliterate God’s presence.

This piece is adapted from a commentary published in 2002 and can be found in (Aviv Press: 2007).

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).   

Yet something deep inside Pharaoh cannot fully turn away from the humanity of his foreign slaves. The hard labor seems only to make the Hebrews stronger, more numerous, and alarmingly widespread through the land of Egypt. Pharaoh cannot disregard them forever. His mind turns to frightening thoughts: What if they become mightier than us? What if they band their splintered factions together to take up arms—or simply open the doors to Egypt’s enemies, joining forces with the very foes the garrisons are meant to keep out?

These thoughts—are they paranoid imaginings or a shrewd strategic vision?—drive Pharaoh to preemptive countermeasures. If he instructs the midwives to kill every newborn boy of the Hebrews, it will stamp out their spirit now and prevent a homegrown rebel army in the future. They will suffer, Pharaoh thinks, while we go on in peace.

Of course, as readers of the Torah know, Pharaoh’s plan must fail. The line between “us” and “them” that feels so clear to him becomes less so in the minds of others. The midwives, Shifra and Puah, refuse to comply with this cruel order and secretly allow all the Hebrew babies to live, lying to Pharaoh’s face about it. Whose side are they on, anyway? The Torah describes Shifra and Puah with a tantalizing ambiguity: their title is הַֽמְיַלְּדֹת֙ הָֽעִבְרִיֹּ֑ת  hameyaldot haivriyot (Exod. 1:15), and commentators have debated for millennia whether this phrase means “the midwives who were Hebrews” or “the [Egyptian] midwives to the Hebrews.” Their stated motivation can be interpreted in line with either reading: they disobey even at great personal risk because: וַתִּירֶ֤אןָ הַֽמְיַלְּדֹת֙ אֶת־הָ֣אֱלֹהִ֔ים (Exod. 1:17).

Translation: “For the midwives feared…” Whom?  How must we understand the object of their awe? Perhaps the midwives revere the Hebrew God because they are B’nei Yisrael themselves. Or it could mean they fear the wrath of their own Egyptian gods, at least more than Pharaoh’s. It could even be that Shifra and Puah are Egyptian but have come to venerate the Hebrew God. Did they lose their faith in Pharaoh’s divinity upon receiving this paranoid and inhumane order? 

In a certain light, it hardly matters whether these midwives were Egyptian or Hebrew. Drawing upon a more fanciful folk etymology, we might say that either way Shifra and Puah are truly ivriyot, “those who cross over/transgress.” When they look at Hebrew parents and babies, they don’t see a terrifying “them” like Pharaoh. They see a human “us” worthy of compassion and protection.

            Pharaoh, however, still in the grips of terror and self-preservation, must resort to even more extreme measures after the failure of this initial plan:

וַיְצַ֣ו פַּרְעֹ֔ה לְכׇל־עַמּ֖וֹ לֵאמֹ֑ר כׇּל־הַבֵּ֣ן הַיִּלּ֗וֹד הַיְאֹ֙רָה֙ תַּשְׁלִיכֻ֔הוּ וְכׇל־הַבַּ֖ת תְּחַיּֽוּן׃

“Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying: ‘Every boy that is born you shall cast into the Nile, and every girl you shall let live.”

Exodus 1:22

So much for the stability of us versus them. This ambiguous verse does not specify whose baby boys are to be killed—now Pharaoh perhaps threatens the whole populace, Egyptian and Hebrew alike. He has indulged his doubts and fears of “them” to the point of suspecting everyone beyond himself and his household as a potential source of overthrow. 

But wait. Is Pharaoh even safe at home? Pharaoh’s daughter, Batya, draws a baby from the Nile and takes him as her own. This child, Moshe, grows to adulthood within Pharaoh’s household, with tremendous power and privilege. And yet Moshe, despite his rarified upbringing, does not draw the lines of “us” and “them” quite as his grandfather Pharaoh does. When he walks through the city, he sees not an expendable-yet-dangerous underclass, but rather, his kinsfolk:

 וַיֵּצֵ֣א אֶל־אֶחָ֔יו וַיַּ֖רְא בְּסִבְלֹתָ֑ם

“He [Moshe] went out to his siblings and saw their suffering labors.”

Exodus 2:11

Moshe seems to have expanded his sense of who is “us.” As Rashi puts it, “He sets his eyes and mind to share in their distress,” even though he certainly doesn’t need to take any notice of these lowly slaves. Does Moshe know at this moment in the Torah story that he is of Hebrew blood? Ibn Ezra feels confident that no, Moshe believes himself Egyptian; while Ramban claims that yes, Moshe has just learned his true identity and sees the Hebrews’ suffering with new compassion. 

Yet, as with Shifra and Puah, does it ultimately matter whether Moshe thought of himself as a Hebrew? Whatever his motivation, he feels compelled, like the midwives, to notice and resist the injustice he has witnessed in his world. Once he brings a wider swath of humanity into his “we,” he is ready to begin his journey as God’s prophet who will help bring about the redemption of B’nei Yisrael.

How do we cultivate this trait in our own lives, expanding our sense of who counts as “us?” It can seem daunting or even impossible to feel kinship with everyone we encounter in a day, especially when there are so many ills to worry about in our world and so many people who feel quite unlike us.  Social science has amply shown that we human beings tend to gravitate toward our ingroup, those most like us, particularly in times of stress and uncertainty. It is challenging, and perhaps impossible, to overcome this entirely.  Universalism may never fully win out over particularism, at least not until Moshiah comes, but that doesn’t mean we cannot push back on the impulse for the sake of cultivating our compassion and motivating righteous actions.

One habit I find useful—some may call it a mind game, others a meditation—is to carry a connective label on the tip of my tongue: “friend” or “comrade,” or “my fellow human.” My preferred us-expanding label is “neighbor,” which I apply to whomever I see as I walk around the familiar streets of Morningside Heights, bringing everyone closer into my perceived ingroup. I challenge myself to think, “There is my neighbor. This person walking their dog is my neighbor. That cab driver who plowed through the crosswalk is my neighbor. The unhoused folks sheltering in this doorway are my neighbors.” It is a small step, of course, but it invites more connection and less fear, inclining me toward positive and compassionate action when the opportunity arises.

Perhaps, if Pharaoh could have learned to see the Hebrews as his kinfolk, his neighbors, the whole story of the Exodus might have been different.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).   

I have wondered, since encountering this midrash, whether we might think of other aspects of the Exodus story in the same way. Perhaps all of what occurs in this book of the Torah, right up to the world-changing events we read about in chapters 19–20, can usefully be seen as preparation for those events. The Israelites needed more than three days at the foot of the mountain to get ready to hear from God what cannot normally be heard and to see what can never be seen. They required all of the awesome experiences of slavery and liberation; of deliverance from Pharaoh’s chariots at the Red Sea, and deliverance from their own thirst and impatience in the wilderness. We too, thousands of years after them, need preparation as we make our way as readers through this narrative each year. The Torah clearly does not wish us to come upon Sinai unaware. A lot of thoughts and emotion pave the way.

I will leave aside for the moment the particular sort of preparation that Rabbi Yosi sought to capture in the midrash to which I referred above. Let’s reflect rather on the more general themes of the book of Exodus, and how they might get us ready for Sinai. I want to ask, in particular, how immersion in history is connected to acceptance of covenant.

It seems utterly crucial to the Torah that the contract we will “sign” at Sinai be thoroughly grounded in the historical world as it is and always has been. This teaching is not meant as a blueprint for individual enlightenment (though it certainly contains such guidelines). The path up to the mountain, like the path down from it, leads straight into and through the most concrete of historical realities. These include day-to-day facts of life such as those Moses’ father-in-law witnesses and helps to improve (dispute and judgment), or those Pharaoh witnesses and works to disrupt (the labor of childbirth and Israelite labor in the fields). The relevant history also encompasses extraordinary realities, blessed or cursed, such as the attempted genocide of an entire people (now all too common an item in the news); or—far less common, but not unknown—the liberation of an entire people from slavery. The Torah describes a redemption so public, so visible, and so miraculous that it cannot but provoke notice of, and thanks for, the help of God. This experience is perhaps the most important preparatory step to covenant of all.

Either way, however—blessing or curse; day-to-day facts of life or extraordinary reality—the Torah seems to teach that the covenant we are making with one another and God is to be enacted in the human world—pre-eminently social and political—that we all know from experience. It does not pertain to some fantasy utopia not yet created. God wants us to know God here, now, as we are, as the world is. It is this story God wants changed by our reading and our labors.

I don’t know about you, but I have long felt challenged by the moment early in the book of Exodus when Moses strikes down the Egyptian who is mercilessly beating an Israelite slave. I realized years ago that by cheering Moses on as the text leads me to do, wishes me to do, I become complicit in a way with the action Moses takes. This, too, is part of the Torah’s intention, I believe. It wants me to lose my innocence in this fashion so as to increase my sense of responsibility for the world. The lesson is a hard one to learn, year by year. We want innocence back and can’t have it.

The Torah wants us instead to be thoughtful moral actors. As such we are not free of responsibility for the evils in which we acquiesce, and, what is more, we share in guilt for the evils in which we join—and perhaps to a lesser extent, for the evils of which we approve. “Few are guilty, all are responsible,” Heschel liked to say. Some of us may choose pacifism as a result of thinking deeply about the costs of the spiraling cycle of violence in the world. This choice, too, involves responsibility and incurs guilt, of course, every bit as much as the decision—based in part on repeated encounters with the story of Israelite suffering in Egypt—that some evil must be stopped by force if necessary. Either way the text haunts us with the tragic knowledge that good rarely comes of violence. The Torah is a determinedly realistic account of history. The covenant it bequeaths us demands wrestling with the deepest of moral dilemmas.

No less, I think, the events leading up to Sinai require that we think as well as we can, using all the resources at our disposal, about what it means for finite creatures like ourselves to “hear”—be in touch with, seek to learn from and obey—the infinite God. What does it mean for women and men who walk on two legs and have two feet planted firmly in the earth to direct our minds’ eyes heavenwards? Again and again we try to imagine—each in our different ways—what it might have been like for Moses to stand at the top of that mountain as God “came down.” The text seems convinced that in order to do so effectively, we had better be able to imagine—each in our different ways—what it might have been like for the Israelites to stand in the “narrow place” of slavery and await deliverance, which for so long did not come.

The Torah puts us into their faraway situation so as to bring us closer to our own. It makes us go through as readers what our ancestors went through in life—so that we work to make sure as many of our children as possible have the good fortune of merely reading about suffering and slavery rather than living through them. The book of Exodus begins with the names of those who went down to Egypt, one by one, the better perhaps to challenge us to add our names to the list of those who bring the world up from Egypt. We do so guided and informed by the covenant agreed upon at Sinai.

May we read the book of Exodus well this year, and have the courage to act in accordance with what we taste of and hear in its Divine Word.

This commentary was first published in 5767. The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).

For me, the Torah’s greatness comes from the way it integrates artistry and meaning. The Torah is playfully serious. It manipulates language, selectively includes and excludes essential narrative details, and is overtly intertextual. Above all, the Torah is crafted to express and to suggest. Its laws, stories, prophetic oracles, wise sayings, prayers, and songs all function in a way as a kind of poetry—a spiritual poetry—that captures the religious imagination, expressing and suggesting profound meanings.

Like all good poetry, the Torah brings in each individual reader and connects us to its stories and truths. Like all good spiritual poetry, the Torah communicates something essential about human experience, capturing our vulnerabilities and our aspirations that extend beyond the specificities of ourselves. The Torah’s spiritual poetry is expansive. It blends the universal with the particular; communicates what is eternal in each moment; and speaks to us as humans and as Jews.

One of the ways the Torah does this is by telling stories that collapse time, causing the past, present, and future to intersect. There are core moments in individual characters’ lives that are linked intentionally to Israel’s larger story, and even to the grand human narrative. These moments simultaneously look backwards and forwards to connect characters with their ancestors and with their descendants, including each one of us.

Parashat Shemot offers several examples. The parashah opens with the names of Jacob’s sons, records the death of Joseph and the passing of his generation, and introduces the next generation of Israel that, being extraordinarily fertile [פרו וישרצו וירבו], fills the earth [ותמלא הארץ] (Exod. 1:7). The words used to describe Israel’s fertility echo the story of creation in Genesis 1 and God’s command to the first humans to be fertile, increase, and fill the earth [פרו ורבו ומלאו] (Gen. 1:28).

With this echo, the Torah poetically links Israel’s story to the world’s story and suggests that Israel experiences a new or renewed creation. Depending on one’s perspective, it is a moment of cosmic continuity or discontinuity. Either way, Israel’s story intersects with the world’s story and the creation of humanity.

Next, the parashah records the birth of Moses, whose life is in danger in the wake of Pharaoh’s decree to throw Israel’s baby boys into the Nile. In another nod to the creation story in Genesis 1, Moses’s mother perceives her son’s goodness [ותרא אתו כי טוב] and places him in a tevah, a container [תבה], setting him afloat in the Nile river. (Exod. 2:2-3)

The only other place in the Torah that the word תבה (tevah) appears refers to Noah’s ark. In this way, the Torah poetically links two moments of salvation, while also hinting at a future salvation. Moses is Noah. His experience of floating down the river in a תבה connects him to this ancestor. Moses also is Israel. His personal experience of salvation—of being drawn from the water—connects him with the people he will lead through the water to their salvation.

The centerpiece of the parashah is Moses’s call to prophecy at the burning bush. This is another poetically charged moment in which the present and the future, the personal and the communal, intersect. Exodus 3:1 describes Moses shepherding his father-in-law’s sheep deep into the wilderness to Horeb, God’s mountain.

This one verse encapsulates the entire story of Exodus in which Moses shepherds Israel through the wilderness to God’s mountain. Once again, Moses’s personal story reflects Israel’s story. Similarly, Moses encounters God at the burning bush [סנה], an overt wordplay on Sinai [סיני], the site of Israel’s communal revelation. In this way, Moses’s intimate moment of private revelation foreshadows Israel’s grand moment of communal revelation.

Moments of creation, salvation, and revelation punctuate Moses’s story, Israel’s story, and the human story. They also punctuate the story of my own life and are key to why the Torah’s spiritual poetry speaks to me and why I think it makes the good book a great book.

The Torah’s spiritual poetry makes specific moments feel timeless and transforms personal stories into communal ones. By doing so, it also enables ancient stories to feel alive for contemporary readers like me. Its expansiveness welcomes me into the Torah’s world and helps me extend my personal narrative beyond my present, connecting me to the ancient past and the distant future. The Torah’s spiritual poetry enables Moses’s story to become Israel’s story and Israel’s story to become my own.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).

In Parashat Shemot, it appears that Moses took conscious steps to operate as a lone bystander, taking action that seems unlikely had a larger crowd been present. Raised in Pharaoh’s household, now an adult, Moses went out to walk among the Hebrew slaves as they labored. After witnessing an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave, “He turned this way and that and, seeing no one about, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand” (Exod. 2:12).

It was only after concluding that no other witnesses were present that Moses took action. One could debate his motivations: Was he making sure that no one would observe this violent action on his part? Was he checking to see if anyone else was preparing to step in and help? Commentaries suggest the former, and perhaps this moment is a perversion of the bystander effect: Moses acted alone both because he didn’t want to be seen and because he realized there was no one else who would stop this beating.  

This is not the only time Moses’s life is altered by a decision to turn his head. After discovering that there was indeed a witness to his killing of the Egyptian, Moses fled to Midian, where he quickly (at least in the text) finds himself married to Tziporah, daughter of Jethro, herding his father-in-law’s sheep through the wilderness. One such trek brought him to the base of Mount Horeb (also considered to be Sinai), where Moses encountered a bush that is aflame, but not consumed by the fire:

“I must turn aside to look at this marvelous sight”, Moses says, “why doesn’t the bush burn up?” (3:3)

While before, when he made the choice to save his fellow Hebrew, he turned to and fro to be sure his actions would not be witnessed, this time he turned precisely in order to bear witness. And of course, it is this second decision to turn and notice that is the catalyst that launches the Exodus story and results in his leadership over the Israelite people for the next forty years.

Various commentaries seek to define the nature of Moses’s turning at the Burning Bush. Did he move closer in order to inspect this oddity? Did he step farther away in order to take in the scene as a whole? Midrash Tanhuma (Shemot 15:2) relates a debate over how much Moses turned aside:

And Moses said: I will turn aside now, and see this great sight (Exod. 3:3). Rabbi Yohanan said that Moses took three steps forward [closer to the bush]. Rabbi Simeon the son of Lakish said he took no steps, but rather simply turned his neck to observe it. The Holy Blessed One said to him: Because you troubled to look, be assured you will merit that I shall reveal Myself unto you.

In other words, even the simple act of turning his neck a few degrees was enough for God to decide Moses was worthy of the prophetic messages he would soon receive, and the mantle of leadership that he would assume. It did not matter that he made a slight hesitation rather than a full detour; it was enough to open himself to an encounter that would change not only his life but the course of an entire people.

The message of this midrash is clear: sometimes a slight pivot is enough to lead to an entirely different destination, if only we will ourselves to make that shift. Twice in this parashah, Moses found this to be true. What would it take for us, then, to overpower the phenomenon that prevents too many of us from stepping off course, and to allow ourselves to turn aside, to truly notice that which is unnatural or unjust, regardless of whether or not others join us? Perhaps if we allow the unexpected to penetrate our consciousness just enough, we can throw off the identity of bystander and allow the reverberations of that tiny motion to propel us in changing the course of history.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).