Dear {{first_name}},
With Purim now in our rearview mirror, we have only a month until we celebrate the holiday of Pesach. We’ll be sending Passover materials to you in the coming days. Passover is a holiday steeped in law, ritual, custom and tradition. It’s a time when we truly embrace all that it is to live a richly engaged Jewish life in a non-Jewish world. Over the coming weeks, I want to offer some reflections about Passover to help you celebrate the holiday this coming year. For this week, we’re going to discuss the complexities around the subject/concept of identity and we’ll do so through a deeper dive into משה/Moses.
משה lived for 120 years in total and we understand his life as three distinct equal parts (each was thus 40 years long). The first 40 years took place in less than one chapter (שמות ב:א – י/Exodus 2:1 - 10) and the second 40 took place in a matter of just over two chapters (שמות ב:יא – ד:כז/Exodus 2:11 – 4:27). The remaining 40 years of his life took place over the course of the remaining chapters of the תורה/Torah. Because we lack so much information about his youth, we need to dig and look for hints that point to something deeper. We know he had an older sister, מרים/Miriam, and an older brother, אהרן/Aaron. We know he was hidden for a time for his own protection and we know he was floated down the river. One of the deepest clues to his childhood comes from the moment he’s returned to בתיה/Batya, Pharaoh’s daughter, after having been nursed by an Israelite wet-nurse (his birth mother) and she named him.
וַיִּגְדַּל הַיֶּלֶד וַתְּבִאֵהוּ לְבַת־פַּרְעֹה וַיְהִי־לָהּ לְבֵן וַתִּקְרָא שְׁמוֹ מֹשֶׁה וַתֹּאמֶר כִּי מִן־הַמַּיִם מְשִׁיתִהוּ׃
When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, who made him her son. She named him Moses, explaining, “I drew him out of the water”. (שמות ב:י/Exodus 2:10)
This verse seems to be so simple and provides us with a reason for his name that we can wrap our heads around. משה was drawn from the water and so this makes sense but בתיה, Pharaoh’s daughter, would not name her son in Hebrew and so we can find something deeper here. The Egyptian language had a name that was almost identical but had a different meaning: Mose is an Egyptian name that means created, born or son of. It would make sense that in Pharaoh’s daughter’s naming, she would assert her motherhood of this adopted son. It makes sense to her point of view of the world, and with that, we begin to see a complicated story of משה and his developing identity. It’s only cloudier in just one verse:
וַיְהִי בַּיָּמִים הָהֵם וַיִּגְדַּל מֹשֶׁה וַיֵּצֵא אֶל־אֶחָיו וַיַּרְא בְּסִבְלֹתָם וַיַּרְא אִישׁ מִצְרִי מַכֶּה אִישׁ־עִבְרִי מֵאֶחָיו׃
Sometime after that, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his kinsfolk and witnessed their labors. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his kinsmen. (שמות ב:יא/Exodus 2:11)
On a fateful day משה went out to his “אחיו/kinsmen”. Who were those people? They were the Israelites. Evidently there was some bond that משה maintained with his birth people. Evidently משה looked at the Hebrews, the Israelites, as a part of him and himself as a part of them. Unfortunately, his grandfather, Pharaoh, saw the same thing and did not fully accept משה. When he learned of the actions of his grandson, he sought to kill him. Over the course of five verses, we see a totally different approach to משה’s identity. When משה ended up in Midian, he sat next to a well, and when he saw some women/girls trying to get water, he saw them get harassed by some shepherds and he rescued them. When they got home, this is what transpired:
וַתָּבֹאנָה אֶל־רְעוּאֵל אֲבִיהֶן וַיֹּאמֶר מַדּוּעַ מִהַרְתֶּן בֹּא הַיּוֹם׃ וַתֹּאמַרְןָ אִישׁ מִצְרִי הִצִּילָנוּ מִיַּד הָרֹעִים וְגַם־דָּלֹה דָלָה לָנוּ וַיַּשְׁקְ אֶת־הַצֹּאן׃
When they returned to their father Reuel, he said, “How is it that you have come back so soon today?” They answered, “An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds; he even drew water for us and watered the flock”. (שמות ב:יח – יט/Exodus 2:18 – 19)
What’s incredible about this is משה was identified as an Egyptian just verses after he was identified as an Israelite, or at the very least he identified with the Israelites. This split identity is something we can relate to in our own lives. We live in the United States as “Americans” and we live in our own world as “Jews”. We live with this dual identity that can at times cause strain and stress. We sometimes feel torn between our Jewish selves and our American selves. The only antidote to this stress is to embrace it for what it is and to recognize something/somebody can be two things at the same time. The two need not be in conflict. We can harmonize them. Thankfully, we live in a country, and in a time, that we’re not expected to forsake our deeply held beliefs and commitments. Thankfully, we’re able to live Jewish lives without the government impinging on our observances. Yes, anti-Semitism is surging and it’s scary and alarming. Yes, we’re shocked and dismayed, but we also need to recognize that unlike previous anti-Semitic episodes in the world throughout history, we now have a country that doesn’t permit it. At פסח we celebrate our freedom and part of freedom is to be ourselves. We have the ability to be who we are and to not allow anything to stand in the way of our deeply held commitments and obligations.
Some people might read these texts as the difficulty of the identity of adopted individuals. Clearly this is personal to my family and me. In fact, Galit was born on the פרשה/Portion when this is read and her middle name is בתיה (Pharaoh’s daughter) so we might read it a bit differently. There are times when adopted children feel a sense of split personalities and identity issues, and there are times where nothing of the sort is felt at all. Some people hide adoption stories from others, and from the adopted child themselves, and the question must be asked as to why they do this. I’m sure each has their own reasons but it almost always feels like there’s something to be “ashamed” about. How is a child to build an identity in such a scenario? There are plenty of cases where the adopted child is treated as someone different and I see that in Pharaoh’s willingness to kill his own grandson rather than just excuse the behavior of a royal prince. The identity of those who are adopted is a bit more complicated than those who are not and that’s to be expected. It’s through honesty that it becomes less complicated. It’s through telling them their story with joy and honor and pride that they’re able to feel enhanced rather than torn.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Hearshen
