Parashat Shemot

Parashat Shemot

Tevet 23, 5773 ~ January 5, 2013

By Neska

Shemos V2:12   He turned this way and that way and saw that no man was there... 

MOSHE:  A DECISION IN THE SPACE OF A FLASH - Based on a teaching by Rabbi Aron Tendler 

In memory of my Uncle Edwin. 

 

I am confused. 

I am at a choice point. 

The decision I make - right now -  

will determine the route of my life...and of the jewish people. 

 

I am a prince.   I am a Jew. 

I live in the palace.  I was born in the field with my family. 

I am an only son.   I know I have an older sister and an older brother. 

I am loved by my Egyptian mother.   I can feel-I know I am loved by my Jewish family. 

They saved my life - my Egyptian mother saved my life. 

I am a prince of the palace. 

 

Day after day I look out at my people - the Jews and the Egyptians. 

It is a mess.  My Jews are being beaten and destroyed and my fellow countrymen, the Egyptians, are the destroyers. 

 

I know I have been put into the palace as a prince for a reason as yet unknown to me.  But I can feel it in my heart and in my soul that my mother Yocheved nourished in me as a baby. And which Basya, my Egyptian mother, has nourished as I have grown.  She is a gentle woman, a caring woman.  She also loves me very much.  To her I am a true son. 

 

So what do I do now? 

 

Can I really do nothing about this Egyptian who is about to kill a Jewish slave? 

Can I really let this happen? 

 

This is a turning point.  If I let the Jew be killed - I have as much murdered him as the Egyptian. 

 

If I interrupt with this killing, the Egyptian will turn on me.  Will he dare to kill me, the Prince?  Will he dare to report me to the King?  I don't know.  Many people suspect me of being not the Prince, but of being a Jew whom Basya saved from the river. 

 

Somehow I know that my decision right now, right here is a turning point.  If I stop the Egyptian, he will report me.  If I kill the Egyptian it will become known.  Certainly, the slave that I save will go home tonight and tell his family and perhaps many more about what happened to him today...that the Prince saved his life by killing an Egyptian. 

 

I will have to flee.  But then I am away from protecting the Jews as much as I can...look what I did by directing Pharoah to decree - No work on the Seventh Day, Shabbos. 

I cannot wait any longer - this second of time has been stretched to its' fulfillment.  i must act now.

And Moshe slays the Egyptian saying the Ineffable Name. 

And the course of the Jews is changed forever.

Rabbi Tendler suggests that even if we are concerned with a huge goal - such as Moshe's leading the people out of Egypt - we must NOT put aside doing what is correct in the now, even at the cost of changing the way to the goal. To the goal.

When we come to choice points, we may not sacrifice doing what is right – right now...according to Torah standards.  The Rabbis also teach "what is a mitzvah?  A mitzvah is doing some action, some thing that you really do not want to do, but you know it is the CORRECT thing to do.  That is a truer mitzvah. 

When i was in Oakland recently i experienced a choice point.  And even though it nagged at me and nagged at me, i took an incorrect turn.  So having just experienced this, i truly can say, we must NOT put aside that which we know is correct in dealing with others. We'll sleep better at night.

 

Shabbat Shalom.