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...