Smadar Peretz
Shabbat shalom. Having just finished BRESHIT, known for its great storytelling we moved today to the book of SHMOT, which opens with an action-filled, dramatic story. Before looking at an obscure and puzzling part in this week's parasha let me briefly recap the story.
Our story takes place in post-Joseph Egypt where a new PHARAOH, one who did NOT know Joseph, is determined to rein in the remarkable growth of BNEI ISRAEL. Despite the decree to cast all Jewish baby boys into the Nile, MOSHE miraculously survives. He grows up in Pharaoh's palace and as a young man discovers the hardship of his people. MOSHE sees an Egyptian beating a Hebrew and kills him. He is then forced to flee to Midyan, where he rescues YITRO'S daughters, marries one of them - Zipporah - and becomes a shepherd of his father-in-law's flocks. It is as a shepherd that God appears to MOSHE in the seneh, the burning bush, and instructs him to go to Pharaoh and demand to let BNEI ISRAEL go. Initially reluctant, MOSHE seems to relent to the divine mission. Moshe goes back to YITRO and tells him he plans to go back to his people in Egypt. Yitro offers his blessing for a safe journey and says, LECH L'SHALOM, go in peace. Moshe takes his wife and sons, GERSHOM AND ELIEZER, mounts them on a donkey and embarks on his journey back to Egypt.
It is during this journey, covered in 3 short verses, that a puzzling and obscure incident takes place. On their way, in a MALON, (a lodging), we are told "God encountered him (MOSHE) and sought to kill him, vayifgeshhu vayevakesh l'hamito". This is the story I would like to discuss with you. What is going on here? How can God, having argued, cajoled, and finally convinced Moshe to carry out the divine mission of redeeming BNEI ISRAEL now wants to kill his very own messenger? What do we make of this bizarre story?
Rashi offers two interpretations of this incident mentioned in the Talmud (Nedarim 31b). According to Rav Yehoshua, Moshe deserved the death penalty for neglecting to perform the great mitzvah of circumcising his second son, Eliezer. Rav Yose, on the other hand, argues that Moshe was not guilty of negligence; rather he faced a serious problem. If he had chosen to fulfill the mitzvah of circumcising his newborn infant, BEFORE LEAVING MIDYAN, he would have had to wait three days for the child to recuperate. However, MOSHE felt obligated to obey God's command to return to Egypt immediately? According the Rav Yose, Moshe correctly concluded that his first duty was to return to Egypt right away and attend to the circumcision after it was safe to do so. Rav Yose nevertheless concludes that Moshe still deserved to be punished because when he arrived in Egypt he went to look for lodging before circumcising Eliezer. This still leaves me wondering: even if Moshe deserved to be punished for not attending to the mitzvah of circumcising his son as quickly as possible, surely there are a few punishments less extreme than death?
But let us go back to dramatic story, which is so odd. Immediately after the text reads: "and God sought to kill him", Zippora snaps into action. She circumcises her son, and then says to her husband: "you are the groom of blood unto me". After Moshe is saved from the jaws of death, she says, "a bridegroom of blood for circumcision." WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?
To understand what it means I suggest we go back to the passage describing Moshe's vision at the burning bush when God orders him to go to Egypt and redeem the Israelites. Moshe, as we read, keeps coming up with arguments against accepting the mission, all the way to the end. There is no clear indication in the text that Moshe has accepted the burden of the divine mission and the role of the redeemer. Notwithstanding God's anger, Moshe never really says he will go. In fact we can safely assume that the impact of the divine rendezvous and the prospects of becoming the redeemer continued to trouble Moshe. And so during the first respite from the hardships of the journey, when the family stops at the MALON, the lodging, Moshe begins to reflect, yet again, about the enormity of the task ahead and his obligation to obey God. In fact, it seems that his thoughts, inner conflict and tensions become so deep and so strong that they threaten his very life. He becomes so ill that he is on the verge of death. I would argue that vayevakesh l'hamito ("and he sought to kill him") should not be interpreted literally as "God sought to kill Moshe", but rather, that the inner turmoil Moshe experiences following his divine encounter brought him to the verge of death.
It is here, at this very moment that Zipporah does and says something so dramatic, which in fact decided the issue and directs the course of redemption, and to a certain extent, the entire course of Jewish history. When Zipporah takes the sharp stone, cuts off the foreskin of her son, and touches it to her to Moshe's feet, and says: "you are a bridegroom of blood unto me", she is in essence saying to her husband: When you married me, and when I consented to be your wife, you told me the history of your family and your people. You told me of the BRIT, the covenant, with Avraham and the glorious future of your people. You explained to me the suffering that your people will have to endure until they achieve their redemption and their ultimate triumph. I could have refused to marry you and remained in the sheltered palace of my father. I could have married within my people and enjoyed the luxuries of a princess. But I came with you and cast my lot with your people, realizing full well the difficulties and the suffering that I would have to endure in being part of this people of God. Zipporah takes the symbol of the circumcision, a physical sign of the covenant, places it at Moshe's feet, making physical contact with her highly distraught and tormented husband as if to say: "this is the covenant and you must go to fulfill your mission and to play your role in this historic drama". It is THEN that Moshe makes his final decision. The pain of indecision and the tension of inner struggle subside, and her bridegroom, who is part of this great eternal covenant, is now ready to go to the community of Israel and redeem them, so they may realized the fulfillment of their historic mission.
I don't know what the correct answer is, or whether there is one. What ever it may be there is a great lesson we can derive from this dramatic incident. MOSHE is clearly engaged in a mission of cosmic importance -- he is on his way to liberate the Jewish nation, lead them to Mount Sinai where he is to receive the Divine Revelation from which all other nations learned morality and faith in God. Rarely has any human received such a unique and significant mission. And yet, even all these important reasons could not prevail over the performance of one of God's mitzvoth. If Moshe indeed exhibited a weakness in his own ability to serve God, it seems God would rather cancel his entire mission than accept even a small transgression. Despite the crucial nature of his mission, MOSHE is NOT indispensable and could be replaced. God is not dependent on any one man, or woman, to carry out his will. As it is said, Harabah s'Elohim lmakom (God has many agents).
In closing, I'd like to share with a more abstract notion. In trying to understand this puzzling story, to make sense of why God would want to kill the very man he chose to be his divine messenger, I realized the inherent tension between the idea of YEDI'A (knowing or knowledge) and its antonym, E-YEDI'A. Our ability to question, attempt to reason and to understand obviously belongs in the realm of yedi'a, knowledge. Having gone through the exercise of understanding and reasoning, I ask myself: What would it take to cross over to the realm of the e-yedi'a, the not knowing? I would argue that the realm of the e-yedi'a, the realm of accepting not knowing is the proper domain of emunah, of truly believing in God. The idea of the e-yedi'a is our ability to willingly relinquish knowing in return for a true belief in the mysterious ways of the divine.
I'd like to leave you with a related quote from Rabbi Menachem Schneersohn, known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe: "God created the universe in a manner in which we perceive our own existence as the intrinsic reality, and godliness as something novel and acquired. Our role is to achieve an entirely new level of perception, where godliness is the absolute reality and we are the novel creations, channels for the divine expression".
SHABBAT SHALOM!