Parashat Shemot – 5786

The Burning Bush – The Thorny Entrance to Leadership’s Path

A D’var Torah for Parashat Shemot

By Rabbi Dorit Edut (AJR 2006)

As you enter my living room, a print of Chagall’s Moses and The Burning Bush greets you. It is a simply constructed painting, with a very bright colorful burning bush (oranges, reds, yellows) next to a kneeling figure of Moses, in a metallic blue robe, hand on his heart, and looking out at you with an amazed expression. Above the bush are the letters of the Tetragrammaton encircled, while a small green angelic figure waves downwards, and some random small sheep float off to one side.  While Chagall grew up in a religious home in Vitebsk, Russia (now Belarus), he certainly adds his own interpretation to the Biblical narrative of this week’s portion, Shemot.  Not only is Moses not hiding his face, but we see the karnei or, the rays or horns of light, which are only mentioned much later when he descends from Mt. Sinai after receiving the Torah. But it brings forth the message very clearly that this encounter is, as renowned Professor Harry M. Orlinsky stated in his article on Moses in the book Great Jewish Personalities (1959), “the turning point of Moses’ career”.  And it certainly occurs in a most unusual way with this unnatural phenomenon and at a time in Moses’ life when he thought he had found a stable life as a shepherd in Midian, far away from the drama of Egypt and the suffering of his fellow Israelites.

We know, as the text continues, that Moses, like other great biblical prophets, does not easily accept this mission, whether from feelings of personal inadequacy or from fear of facing both the Egyptians and the Israelites, or from a certain irritation at having to give up his stable and mundane lifestyle. Yet, ultimately, he goes along with the plan and learns to be a leader – arguably the greatest leader that the Jewish people have ever had. But Moses’ beginnings, somewhat like those of Joseph, seem not to follow any logical, predictable course – but ultimately are seen to have experiential value in developing the kind of leader that was needed by the Jewish people.

The symbolism of the Burning Bush has also long been a subject of commentaries, but there are several that talk about the importance of this strange object for the development of Moses as a leader.  The Midrash of Shemot Rabbah focuses on the word “eilav – to him” which seems to be superfluous in that there are no other people around to whom God was presenting this amazing sight. This means that this was indeed a private revelation meant just for Moses, as the dreams of visions God had communicated privately with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. It perhaps was a kind of test to find out if Moses indeed had that special power of “seeing” needed to become a real messenger of the Divine.

Continuing on from this are the words in the next verse “b’levat aish – in a flame of fire” – which the Midrash explains was in order to give Moses courage when he later would face the fires of Mt. Sinai and not show fear in front of the Israelite nation, especially when he had to go to receive the Torah there. Having a positive encounter now would steel him well for the later one. At some level this acknowledges the humanity of Moses and draws a fine line between fear and awe.

As rabbis and cantors, spiritual and educational leaders of our Jewish community today, we each have had different paths which led us to this career. At some point in our lives, or maybe at several, I believe that we probably experienced some kind of Divine call, something that pushed us, like Moses, perhaps reluctantly, to accept this message and begin walking on this road that led us to ordination and beyond. Maybe it was a crooked road, with many turns and twists, bumps and dead ends, that we can now see was vital to traverse to give us the strength and skills to persevere and to serve in all kinds of situations.  But looking back, there was also at least one special moment when we met our own ‘burning bush’ and realized that, yes, we each had the faith in God and in ourselves to become the modern version of Klei Kodesh.

My own encounter came when I was 12 years old and my Hebrew school class had just studied the Book of Judges. Something inside of me was so inspired by this image of the strong, wise female leader – a rarity for Jewish girls in 1961- that I asked my rabbi if I could become a prophetess someday or if not that, what about a rabbi? He looked at me kindly and replied “Well, no honey – but you could marry one!” That was like a knife going through me, and I kept that hurt inside for 40 years, always murmuring to myself that ‘Someday I WOULD become a rabbi and a leader for our Jewish community.’  So I became a teacher, and then a crisis counselor for families and youth – until one day, I realized I had gotten another message that confirmed my inner voice. Twelve different times I had to send students who seriously threatened suicide for intensive in-patient treatment – and each time when they returned to public school, they wanted to discuss life after death, a subject that I told them was a religious one and best handled by their minister, imam or rabbi. Soooo – it dawned on me that it was time for me to free myself from these constraints, to be able to guide people spiritually, to answer that long-ago call and become a rabbi! But how valuable were the side roads of having been a teacher and a counselor prior to taking on this new vocation – God had been preparing me all along!

Certainly, the times we live in challenge each of us and our Jewish people especially. How do we as Jewish leaders deal with the growth of antisemitism, the relationship to Israel, the sharp political divide here, the many social and climate issues that demand our attention? And that is in addition to serving the individual and communal needs of our own congregants and neighbors. But now more than ever we can draw strength as leaders from those special moments of faith, inspiration, encounters with God which started us on this journey. As Moses left the Burning Bush with a Divine rod in his hand, with instructions how to face Pharaoh and the Children of Israel, and a renewed faith that God was guiding him, so let us find the strength to stand up, speak out, and bring the lessons of Torah to our people.

I bless each of you my friends and colleagues with these words from a poem called “A Blessing” by Danny Siegel:

“May your eyes sparkle with the light of Torah,

And your ears hear the music of its words.

May the space between each letter of the scrolls

Bring warmth and comfort to your soul.

May the syllables draw holiness from your heart,

And may this holiness be gentle and soothing

To you and all God’s creatures.

May your study be passionate,

And meanings bear more meanings

Until life arrays itself to you

As a dazzling wedding feast.

And may your conversation,

Even of the commonplace,

Be a blessing to all who listen to your words

And see the Torah glowing on your face.”