Hebrew scholar and Jewish academic Irene Lancaster explains the Jewish perspective on the choosing of Moses and the women who made him who he was.
In the Jewish calendar, we have just started the Book of Exodus, known in Hebrew as Shemot - Names. The first Sedra encompasses Chapters 1 to 6:1. Here we are introduced to six women, four of them not Jewish - but all of them heroic. This isn’t mere coincidence. Baby Moses would have been dead without them, but all six were necessary to the birth and nurture of the man regarded by Judaism as its greatest teacher and leader.
The fact that four of these women were not Jewish, even if three of them later converted, demonstrates beyond a doubt that Judaism isn’t interested in gaining adherents - far better to have the whole world imbued with basic values than to force people to conform to a particular way of life. In the Jewish view, other ways of life are also part of G-d’s plan, as long as basic values are adhered to. These values would include setting up law courts and caring for animals. Thousands of years later, how many countries adhere to the rule of law and abstain from cruelty to animals? Not many!
But these women went beyond the norm. They all risked their lives for baby Moses, while the sixth woman eventually married him and taught him a thing or two when it came to their own baby!
The first two women were Moses’ sister Miriam who persuaded her parents to stay together when things were going badly under Pharoah. Then his mother Yocheved gave birth to him in very difficult circumstances.
Shifra and Puah were the two midwives assigned to the ‘Hebrew’ babies and were supposed to murder the males at birth. However they cared for them instead. Shifra cleaned him up and attended to his physical care, while Puah would coo to him and sing him lullabies. These are the essential elements of baby care, physical and emotional.
In order to save his life, when Pharaoh ordered the male babies to be thrown into the Nile (1:22), Yocheved placed him in the river in a basket and ‘the daughter of Pharaoh … sent her handmaiden to fetch it’ (2:5).
The daughter of Pharaoh became known as Batya - the daughter of G-d. She disobeyed her father’s decree and not only saved the baby from the river but brought him up in her own palace, engaging his mother as his nurse. In this way his first years were dual - hostile Egyptian and familiar Jewish.
Later, Moses would marry Zipporah, daughter of Yitro, High Priest to the Midianites. According to Jewish tradition they both converted to Judaism and the father-in-law gave Moses a great deal of good advice.
When Moses’ mind is elsewhere, Zipporah notes G-d’s displeasure and circumcises their own son, Gershon, herself (4.25). She thus appeases G-d’s anger at Moses’ tardiness.
So these are the six women: four not Jewish originally, although Shifra, Puah and Zipporah become righteous converts, while Batya is praised for giving a baby meant for death a comfortable home and keeping ties with his mother. And Miriam, his sister, watched over him from the sidelines.
Thus the stage is set for the story of Judaism’s greatest teacher and leader. He wouldn’t have got anywhere in life without the six women who made sure he survived and flourished, all in opposition to the powers-that-be.
Somehow, however, Moses never felt quite at home in the Egyptian court. And this is where we turn to the exciting book, Shemot: The Book of Exodus, by Rabbi Dr Nathan Lopes Cardozo, which he has just sent me. Rabbi Cardozo emphasizes Moses’ ‘unorthodox education’ demonstrated by the verse ‘He turned this way and that, and he saw that there was no man, and he struck the Egyptian and hid him in the sand‘ (2:12).
How did ‘Moshe Rabbenu [become] capable of undertaking the arguably most challenging leadership role in human history: liberating a few million slaves from an entrenched dictatorship and transforming them into a nation of G-d?’ You might think that to inspire millions of people to love G-d would necessitate the best religious education, under the tutelage of the finest teachers, and that you would have to be a ‘holy’ person from early on and require a well-protected environment into which outside heretical ideas could not penetrate and where secularism would play no part.
However, Moses’ experience was very different. A traumatic birth, based in secrecy; apparent abandonment by immediate family; adoption from certain death by an alien person to be brought up in unaccustomed luxury which made him feel uneasy.
And then, when Moses first leaves the palace to visit his enslaved brothers, he is struck by the hard realities of life. Right in front of him a fellow Egyptian is striking a Hebrew slave. With no hesitation, Moses kills the Egyptian and buries him in the ground (2:12).
Why does Moses, brought up as an Egyptian, take the side of the ‘other’? He was probably unaware of his own origins as the son of a Levite. Therefore an inner voice must have told him of his shared destiny with the Israelite slaves, rather than continue in line with the authorities by whom he had been raised.
He was Pharaoh-in-waiting; why, then, did he reject this path for the perceived enemies of the State with whom he felt more at home? Maybe Moses suddenly realized that he was living in two worlds. He was immersed in Egyptian culture, but his heart was with his true brothers, the Hebrew, Israelite slaves. He heard a voice demanding the opposite of everything Egypt stood for. That is why ‘he turned this way and that.’
Moses was at a crossroads. From that moment on he would be a ‘Hebrew’, meaning a person who ‘comes from the other side’. From the Jewish perspective, by smiting the Egyptian man, he is killing off ‘restriction’ within himself and ‘[burying] it in the sand’. This decision turned the world on its head and changed the direction of history. It is one of the most radical decisions ever made, eventually leading both Jews and non-Jews to place G-d at the centre of their lives.
In effect, Moses realized that by terminating his ambivalent situation, he would be destroying his entire future. Not only would he not become the new Pharaoh, but he would actually turn Egypt against him, becoming a wanderer and refugee with no money or future.
Heroism means saying ‘no’ and accepting the consequences of resistance - which is usually oblivion. But in Chapter 3, G-d reveals Himself to Moses in the burning bush. Not his early education, but his radical rebellion against it, led G-d to choose Moses to lead the Hebrew people out of slavery and into the Promised Land, as well as inspiring people worldwide to live a more ethical life.
To achieve all this, you have to be the ‘rebel within’, oblivious of consequences to yourself. You have to swim against the tide and be prepared for complete rejection. Moses Rabbeinu, brought up in a foreign environment, proved himself to be up to the job!
Moses’ destiny truly began with his ability to question and upset the status quo. The Torah - the first five books of the Bible - was the first rebellious text to appear in world history. It takes apart idol worship, immorality and the worship of man. It protests against complacency, self-satisfaction, imitation and negation of spirit. It calls for radical thinking and drastic action without compromise, even when it means standing alone. Judaism was born out of opposition, rebellion and protest, and it overthrew and outlived mighty empires.
Throughout history constant failure has often been the spur to greater things. Just look at Winston Churchill, for instance. Even the British monarch of the time rejected his heroic stance against Hitler, until Churchill was proved right and saved the kingdom! In Moses’ case he was already 80 when he was finally able to stop running (2:11-15). Moses was constantly in hiding, never enjoying a moment’s respite, and failing to make an impression. Moses was always the same shepherd, running around in circles and living in dire poverty. Then when he was 80, G-d called him to the ‘burning bush’ (Chapter 3), after which he sent him to liberate his people from bondage.
However, at first his failures exceeded his successes. Moses’ first encounter with Pharaoh ended in defeat. Pharaoh actually ‘hardened his heart’ (Chapter 5) and increased the slaves’ hard toil. After each plague, Moses thought he had achieved his goal, but Pharaoh kept changing his mind, crushing all hope.
Once having crossed the Reed Sea and entered the wilderness, Moses encounters one rebellion after the other. He is blamed for all sorts of perceived wrongs and has to deal with the people’s demands to return to Egypt.
After the incident of the Golden Calf, G-d tells Moses He will actually destroy the Israelites. Moses felt like a complete failure. He sends the 12 ‘spies’ to survey the Land of Canaan. As a result of that fiasco, he has to spend another 39 years in the wilderness.
Then his opponent, Korach, tries to undermine his authority and Moses is nearly murdered by his own people.
Finally, Moses ignores G-d’s precise instruction; instead of speaking to the rock in order to produce water, he strikes it. He is therefore told that he will never be allowed to enter the Land of Israel.
This devastating news was the final blow. Not to be permitted to set foot in the Land after all his exertions to bring the people to that very place, he must have felt absolutely broken and worthless.
It therefore would never have occurred to Moses that he would be seen as the greatest Jew of all time - and greatly respected by Christians; that his name would be immortalized in Scripture itself, as well as on the lips of millions of people for thousands of years up until the present day and into the future.
What was the secret of Moses carrying on regardless?
Moses’ secret was that he knew how to lose. He knew that his failures were in fact building blocks for his future successes. He continued to fight and ultimately prevailed. When you reach rock bottom there is nowhere else to go but up. Moses experienced many knocks in life, but inwardly he knew that these knocks were making him stronger and stronger, until finally he became the great leader he was meant to be.
And let’s not forget that he couldn’t have done any of this without the six women who surrounded him with love from the very beginning: his older sister, his mother, his two Egyptian midwives, his adopted Egyptian mother and his Midian wife.
This all goes to show that though origins may be important, openness to new ideas take us further, while learning from failure may be the greatest teacher of all!
