Shabbat Shemot

Exodus Chapter 1-6:1 - Moshe as Innovator

by Rabbi Jeremy Rosen

Rabbi Jeremy Rosen

The book of Bereishit develops the story of individuals who found their ways to a non-material God. Starting with Avraham and on to  the 12 sons of Yaakov. For hundreds of years, this was a tribal system that all the Israelites knew. They went down to Egypt with one or two customs that they preserved but over time became slaves. They had no autonomy. It was only in Exodus that God, Moshe and Pharaoh refer to them as a people and  Moshe began to articulate what that meant and required.

Peoplehood is messy. Peoples are rarely monolithic. And Pharaoh took advantage of that. Divide and conquer came to symbolize the policies of the British Empire and indeed the way the Nazis ran their death and forced labor camps.  Pharaoh did the same. He appointed Israelite supervisors and taskmasters ( Chapter 5:6) whose interests did not always coincide with the mass of slaves.

But it's clear from the story of the midwives that there was some kind of social organization amongst the different peoples. Even if  they preserved their tribal loyalties and rivalries. There were elders and priests all adding to the potential for disagreement and chaos. And the rebellions against Moshe’s authority continued throughout his life.

In having to articulate a national vision Moshe had the unique advantage of having seen other systems of governance ( and religion) both in Midian and in Egypt. He grew up in two different worlds. The world of his birth parents which was identifiably Israelite. Then there was his life in the court of Pharaoh as the adopted son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He was able to see exactly how the Egyptian royal system worked, and he lived at a time when in Egypt there were upheavals and debates about the nature of how Egypt should be ruled, the role of the priests, and indeed the nature of the religion itself. And as a fugitive he experienced in Midian the way his father-in-law Yitro functioned. 

Moses lived during these turbulent times and would have seen what worked and what did not. This must have enabled him to cope with the awesome task of leading a whole nation of argumentative and impatient individuals out of Egypt towards the land of Israel. He could see what worked and what did not. And he surely realized that without a strong moral and spiritual dimension to bring people together and inspire them, there was no better model of combining a constitution than with superior or Divine authority.

The problems that Moshe faced were not just that of freeing his people from servitude but also in trying to get the various tribes and the rivalries within the Israelites to throw away their rivalries and disagreements and come together as a united nation. Remember the incidents when Moshe killed the Egyptian taskmaster who had killed an Israelite. He  thought that nobody was looking,  but the following day he faces two Israelites who were fighting amongst themselves and when he tried to separate them, the aggressor  turned on him and said “Who do you think you are? What right have you to give us orders?” ( Exodus2:14).

This arrogant rebelliousness began the 40 year long process of Moshe constantly having to face the internal problems of a fractious people who were not only divided by tribe but were also as oppressed slaves psychologically damaged and wounded. He was faced with a religious problem of getting the Children of Israel who had been persecuted for so long to recognize there was a possibility that their God would free them against all odds. And to impose upon them, both ethical and religious structures, with a far more comprehensive constitution than they had had up to that moment. Moshe knew from the start they would not listen. 

When Moses and Aaron approached Pharaoh with their initial request, the reaction of Pharaoh was to increase the burdens and force them to go out and gather straw in order to build bricks. The Jewish foremen encountered Moshe and Aaron and effectively cursed them and accused them of giving Pharaoh the means to destroy them ( Chapter5:20). Poor Moshe had to go back to God for reassurance. And yet throughout his life, his relationship with God was complex too. Needing constant reassurance.

Sigmund Freud in his inaccurate and fanciful “Moses and Monotheism” suggested that Moshe was an assistant to Akhenaten and supported his agenda. And when Akhenaten was deposed, and his reforms were revoked Moses looked for somebody else to try out his new ideas and that was when he found the Israelite slaves and forced his leadership and laws upon them. Freud's fanciful theory went on to suggest that the Israelites killed Moses because they didn't want to accept the limitations of his laws.

The Torah underlines the constant tension between the two tasks that he had to complete, the nation building and the religion. Completing only one of those tasks would have required superhuman strengths, the two of them were in the end more than he could complete. Indeed, here we are over three thousand years later, still arguing politically and religiously. Perhaps that is the Divine plan!

Shabbat Shalom

Jeremy

January 2025

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Jeremy Rosen was born in Manchester, England, the eldest son of Rabbi Kopul Rosen and Bella Rosen. Rosen's thinking was strongly influenced by his father, who rejected fundamentalist and obscurantist approaches in favour of being open to the best the secular world has to offer while remaining committed to religious life. He was first educated at Carmel College, the school his father had founded based on this philosophical orientation. At his father's direction, Rosen also studied at Be'er Yaakov Yeshiva in Israel (1957–1958 and 1960). He then went on to Merkaz Harav Kook (1961), and Mir Yeshiva (1965–1968) in Jerusalem, where he received semicha from Rabbi Chaim Leib Shmuelevitz in addition to Rabbi Dovid Povarsky of Ponevezh and Rabbi Moshe Shmuel Shapiro of Yeshivat Be'er Ya'akov. In between Rosen attended Cambridge University (1962–1965), graduating with a degree in Moral Sciences.