Inclusiveness and Our Ability to Do Good
Adapted From Rabbi Braun’s Sermon in 5774
There is a very strange interruption in the biblical narrative in the beginning of our parsha.
The parsha begins with Hashem’s promise of redemption to Moshe. Moshe relays the message to the people who rebuff him. Hashem comes back to with a command to take this message to Pharaoh. Moshe counters with “I can’t go – I don’t speak well.”
We all know what happens next, God appoints Aaron, Moshe’s brother as his spokesperson.
The problem is, that is not what we read next in the Torah. That comes some 14 verse later. In between Moshe’s counter and God’s response we get a genealogy lesson!
We are told about the children of Reuven and Shimon and Levi, which leads us to the birth of Moshe and some of his cousins.
This interruption raises numerous questions.
Why here? Even if we need to learn about Moshe’s origins, why insert that information in the middle of a story and why this story?
Why do we get information about Reuven and Shimon but not the other tribes?
Once we get to Moshe why go further? What does the info about his cousins teach us?
The Midrash in Pesikta Zutrata, the Ramban, and the Malbim all write that the lineage is listed in order to highlight the uniqueness of one group over the other.
For the Midrash it is the Jews versus the Egyptians and for the Ramban and Malbim, with slightly different formulations it is Levi and Moshe as opposed to the Reuven and Shimon and their descendants.
The Jews are special and the Egyptians less so. OR Moshe and Levi are leaders, special and Reuven and Shimon etc. are not.
Rashi, on the other hands reads this in a more inclusive and positive way. He quotes the Midrash in pesikta rabbati that explains as follows:
At the end of the book of Bereishit, Genesis, Jacob calls his children together to bless them and he has less than positive things to say about Reuven Shimon and Levi. The Torah goes out of its way here to give us their yichus, their lineage in order to teach us that they too are important.
This is a very powerful Rashi. According to the Midrash we add verses to the Torah and interrupt a story in order to correct a possible negative perception of our fellow Jew.
This approach stands diametrically opposed to all of the others. It is not us against them, it does not pit one group against the other – it seeks to include and accept and restore honor.
Those commentators answered the why these tribes question, but not the why here question. For that we turn to a fabulous piece of commentary by Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch.
Hirsch argues that the reason that it is here is because this is the turning point in the story. Until this point Moshe was unsuccessful. His attempts to free the Jews led to more suffering and harder work. Until this point there was no point to trace Moshe’s lineage. He had not accomplished anything.
From here onward the signs and plagues begin, the process that leads to the Exodus starts here.
But before that happens argues Hirsch, there is one critical piece of information that we need.
We need to know and understand that Moshe is a human being, and not some type of demi God.
We are given Moshe’s lineage and family information in order to impress upon us that he has an “absolutely human origin.” He has parents and uncles and cousins and children.
At times humans have had the tendency to turn their leaders and great ones into God’s and the Torah interrupts our story at the outset to teach us not to do this. Moshe was a human being like us.
In addition to highlighting the danger of creating other Gods, there is a very positive message for us as people and human beings in the Torah’s approach.
By transforming our heroes into God’s we are implicitly arguing that they accomplished what they did because they were God’s. Only a divine being could accomplish something so great. A mere mortal, no chance.
Argues Hirsch, Moshe was a human being who did amazing things and reached incredible spiritual heights. The potential for that type of greatness is inherent in all of us. Every one of us needs to understand that we are capable of greatness. If we put in the time and work, we can accomplish amazing things.
