G-d tells Moshe much of how his mission to Egypt will play out. Including the first plague and the last plague.  But not any of the 8 in between. Why tell Moshe only the first and last plague, blood and the firstborn? These are the plagues that most directly and graphically address the Egyptian mass murder of Jews and the punishment to come. But the beginning and the ending of things is also how we live our lives. And it's the Jewish story. We all know how we begin and will end in the most general sense. And we know, more specifically, the beginning and ending of the story of the Jewish people. What we do not know is all that comes in between. Even knowing the ultimate ending, Moshe felt uncertainty and had questions for G-d. As do we. From our vantage point the most important parts of life are those that happen in the middle. Like right now. But that is also what we are not meant to know because while the beginning and end are in the hands of the Almighty, much of what passes in b...

Midian is the end of Moshe's journey in both his escape from Egypt and his leadership of the Jewish exodus from Egypt.  After  fleeing Pharaoh's wrath, Moshe makes his way to Midian where he marries and herds his father-in-law's sheep in the desert by Har Sinai. There he receives the revelation of the burning bush. And there he meets his brother Aharon before the two of them set off together.  Moshe's original journey foreshadows his future journey. At the end of his mission, G-d commands him to lead the war against Midian before he is to die. On neither journey does Moshe enter the land of his fathers.  It would be easy to see this as a failure if we view Moshe's life on a map running forward. And yet by retracing and beginning his religious mission from Sinai, we can understand Moshe's life not in linear fashion, but as a mission centered on the place where the Torah was given to the Jewish people. All lives run forward ultimately end in death. And from that v...

The biblical story of creation strikes many people as little odd. Modern science insists that the universe came randomly into existence and that the earth as we know it emerged after a process of billions of years. The Torah however insists on days. And specifically six days. After six days, then G-d rests. Why would an omnipotent G-d need six days as opposed to one to create everything. And then why rest? We often mistake the commandment of keeping the Sabbath as merely taking a day off. But we are commanded to work for six days just as we are commanded to rest on the seventh. We do not merely imitate the Creator by resting on one day of the week, but by working for the remainder of the week. During six days, G-d not only brought forth life, He resolved contradictions, sometimes through separation and sometimes through bringing forth a new unity. This is essentially what we do throughout our work week. We struggle to resolve contradictory impulses, drives and needs. We try to act ethi...

In Parshas Mattos, Moshe briefly mentions the "matter of Bilaam" when indicting the nation of Midian. But while there are commentaries that discuss when the sorcerer might have advised King Balak of his scheme, we need not look for offstage moments when it was there right before us. On the surface Bilaam appears to be pious and devout. A man who repeatedly insists that he cannot say anything that G-d does not place in his lips. But what appears to be a profession of integrity is actually a message. It is a message akin to "we are being listened to and I cannot speak freely." Balak, vulgar and arrogant, is slow to understand the message even though Bilaam lays it out for him in the first blessing. Bilaam understands what Balak does not, that cursing the Jews will not work and tells him what will by cleverly inverting a curse into a blessing.  "How can I curse whom G-d has not cursed, and how can I invoke wrath if the Lord has not been angered?" he asks, con...

Parshas Mattos begins with a survey of the laws of oaths addressed to the tribal leaders.  Why specifically the tribal leaders? While Mattos may begin with the laws of oaths and vows, it concludes with the leaders of two tribes requesting that they settle the other side of the Jordan and committing to go and fight with the other tribes until they succeed in their wars.  Both times a similar phrasing "kol hayotze mepif taaseh" "that which comes from your mouth you shall do" is used.  But while Avraham bound Eliezer and Yaakov bound Yosef with oaths, Moshe asks no oath of them. He simply tells them that they must keep their word and that there will be consequences if they do not. Indeed there are two tragic oaths that will later follow, by Yiftah, who vows to sacrifice whatever comes to meet him on his return home, and Shaul, who vows that he will kill anyone who breaks his pledge to eat nothing until the enemy is defeated only to have his son Yonatan unknowingly eat ...

The story of Shavuot intersects with the story of two non-Jewish figures: Yitro, Moshe's father-in-law, and Ruth, whose story is read on Shavuot. The most compelling moment in the story of Ruth is also the beginning of her story when despite her mother-in-law's pleas, she refuses to go. There is a contrasting moment in the parsha or section in which the giving of the Ten Commandments is described which is known as Parshas Yitro. Parshas Yitro begins with Yitro visiting Moshe accompanied by Moshe's wife and sons. And yet in the more recent parsha readings in the Shabbosim around Shavuot which described the dedication of the Leviim, there is no mention of Moshe's sons. A genealogy states merely that the descendants of Moshe and Aaron are Aaron's sons.  In Parshas Behalaoscha, there is a brief reference to Moshe marrying a 'Cushite' woman who does not appear to jibe with the previous description of Moshe's wife and there is also an exchange between Moshe an...

From the very beginning G-d had warned Moshe that Pharaoh would not listen to him. Why then did Moshe have to trek to the Egyptian tyrant, warn him of the plagues, only to be dismissed, over and over again? At the beginning of Parshas Bo, G-d finally tells Moshe the reason. "So that you may tell your children and grandchildren..." Throughout this whole process, Moshe and the Jews had been rooted in the present while G-d was speaking of the future. Here, G-d pulls back the curtain and reveals that the struggles of the present will inform and shape the Jews people throughout time. Often in our struggles, we feel stuck in the moment. The answer in Parshas Bo is to think of the future. Time is a theme in Parshas Bo.  The plague of the firstborn is visited at midnight. It is I believe the first explicit mention of time in the Torah, not in terms of broad measures like day and night, but a very specific measure of time. Likewise the first Mitzvah, that of the new moon and the cal...