Shemot/Names - Shabbat 12/25/10
“He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed.” (Ex. 3:2)
What do science fiction writer Robert Heinlein, Popeye the Sailorman and pre-teens have in common? It turns out they all have Parashat Shemot to thank for quotations that made them famous. Cases in point: When Moses flees Egypt and marries Tziporah, he names their son Gershom because, as Moses says, he has been a “stranger (ger) in a strange land,” thus lending Heinlein the perfect title for his classic book about life on Mars. Later, God instructs Moses to go to Pharaoh and tells him, “Ehyeh asher ehyeh,” translated as “I will be what I will be”, or “I am that I am.” When Popeye’s famous cartoon short “I Yam what I Yam” was made, he was lucky not to have to pay divine royalties. Finally, there are the indelible words of a pugnacious Israelite. After Moses asks this Israelite why he is striking his fellow, the man retorts, “Who made you chief and ruler over us?” This infamous phrase lives on among adolescents everywhere in the form of “You’re not the boss of me!”
Aside from famous one-liners, this theme of intervention is the major subtext of the parasha. In the face of Pharaoh’s decree that Israelite boys be killed, the midwives Shifra and Puah put themselves at risk to save newborns; Pharaoh’s daughter adopts the endangered baby Moses, despite indications that he is a Hebrew; Moses intervenes three times when faced with injustice, first breaking up a fight between Israelites, then defending a slave from a taskmaster and finally helping Tziporah and her sisters ward off harassing shepherds; and of course, Aaron joins his brother to intercede on behalf of the oppressed.
When Moses saw the taskmaster who was beating an Israelite, he "looked this way and that way, and when he saw there was no person (ish) he smote the Egyptian." Commentators note that there probably were other people, yet when Moses looked around he saw that no Egyptian would defend the slave, and neither were any Israelites willing to get involved. He realized that he needed to do something, and took action. In this way Moses followed the teaching of the Mishna (Pirkei Avot): “In a place where there is no ish, strive to be one.”
Now that’s a quotation worth remembering.
Shabbat shalom!
Micah Liben, Legacy Heritage Rabbinic Fellow
