Jewish World Review Dec. 29, 1998 / 10 Teves, 5759

Moses: The
Original Version

By Gary Rosenblatt

HEY KIDS — and moms and dads — the Prince of Egypt is coming soon to your neighborhood. Not just the animated, DreamWorks musical, which recently opened in movie houses around the country, but the real thing — the original version, beginning with the weekly Torah portion of “Shmos,” that will be read in synagogues around the world on Jan. 9. You owe it to yourself to read the authentic version.

Described in the Torah as the most humble of men, Moses would surely be embarrassed by all the media hype he is receiving these days, though he’d also be bemused by what he read in the popular press and media. A new book by Jonathan Kirsch, “Moses: A Life,” suggests that the biblical leader had a split personality, that he was at times shy and uncertain, at other moments decisive and authoritative, perhaps a result of various versions of the narrative of his career being spliced together over time. Kirsch also questions whether Moses lived at all, since the author finds no historical proof that the ancient Israelites were even in Egypt during the second millennium BCE, the reported era of the exodus. A German scholar, Jan Assmann, argues in his book, “Moses the Egyptian,” that the man in question was not a Hebrew slave but an Egyptian rebel, echoing Freud’s famous “Moses and Monotheism.”

All of this is dutifully reported in a lengthy essay on Moses by David Denby in a recent issue of the New Yorker, tracing historical writings that question the veracity of the Bible story and Moses’ very existence. At best, Denby suggests, the biblical writers have given us a stern, angry, unforgiving myth of a man.

Time magazine’s Dec. 14 cover story, “Who Was Moses?” is more respectful in tone, offering “a fresh look at a hero for our time,” and summarizing the highlights of his life, as described in the Bible. “He is a metaphor for our times,” the article asserts, “proof that a single flawed human being can be chosen to change the world.” In truth, that is a powerful message implicit throughout the Torah, that the founders and leaders of Judaism were not divine, but rather men and women with faults and shortcomings not skirted in the narrative. Yet they had the faith and commitment to accomplish wondrous deeds.

Levi Meier, a rabbi and clinical psychologist, says that Moses can serve as a role model for each of us because he was able to overcome great obstacles and grow in his personal relationship with G-d while serving as a selfless leader for his people. In his new book, “Moses: The Prince and the Prophet” (Jewish Lights), Meier, a chaplain at a Los Angeles hospital, uses Midrashic sources to show how Moses’ life can be read as a model for our own personal growth.

“I deal with patients who live in their own form of Egypt,” Meier told me, referring to people in depression or addicted to drugs or alcohol. “They are trying to numb the pain of life, and they often say they are the victim of circumstance.”

He points out that Moses, too, was such a victim, born with a stutter, at a time of genocide — Pharaoh was drowning all Jewish male children — and raised away from his parents’ home. But Moses focused on what needed to be done. Though described by critics as stern, Moses was chosen by G-d for his very compassion, as illustrated in a Midrash about how the young shepherd left his flock to carry a sickly sheep to water. Indeed, the only description of Moses in all of the Torah is that he was the most humble of all men. And more than once he put his life on the line by arguing with G-d, pleading for mercy for the Children of Israel when G-d would have destroyed them for their sins.

Levi says that Moses’ story suggests 10 central lessons about how to live a meaningful life, including: do not perceive of yourself as a victim; face challenges; know that you contain the spark of Divinity; acknowledge your humanity; have an ongoing dialogue with G-d; be humble; and know that you have the ability to have a reciprocal relationship with G-d.

Levi’s book is but the latest in a long tradition of inspirational writings by Jewish thinkers showing the relevance of the Bible — its narrative and characters — to our own lives.

It is ironic, and instructive, that we sometimes fail to reflect on our own rich Jewish tradition until a part of it garners the attention of the mass culture around us. But now that Moses is the subject of a popular movie, books and magazine articles, we owe it to ourselves to take a deeper look into what our heritage has to say about the greatest of Jewish leaders.

Our rabbis say that Moses was chosen for his mission by G-d because he saw the miracle of the Burning Bush when those around him did not. He saw, in other words, the miracle that is in the ordinary. That is a lesson each of us can try to emulate in our daily lives, and starting Jan. 9, we have the opportunity to follow the story of Moses and his people in the weekly Torah portion for the next nine months — to be followed, not by Moses: The Sequel, but the original, once again.