משה רבינו

Moses our teacher is the man whom God Himself called 'humbler than any person on the face of the earth' (Numbers 12:3), and with that same mouth brought an entire people out of slavery. The greatest of the prophets, the giver of the Torah, the leader of the Exodus, and also the shepherd who at first refused and said, 'send by the hand of whomever You will send' (Exodus 4:13). His greatness begins in hesitation.

The Torah does not hide his struggles. He struck the Egyptian, fled, quarreled with his people in the wilderness, and at the waters of Meribah struck the rock instead of speaking to it, and over that fine a matter he was barred from entering the Land. This very honesty teaches: there is no leader without failure, and greatness is measured not by the absence of stumbling but by the responsibility one takes for it.

What set Moses apart from every other prophet was the closeness: 'and God spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend' (Exodus 33:11). And with all that height, absolute humility. He asked nothing for himself, pleaded for the people even after they sinned, and said to God, 'blot me out of Your book' (Exodus 32:32), willing to be erased so that his people would be saved.

What do we learn from him? That true greatness and humility are not opposites but intertwined. Moses brought Torah from heaven and remained small in his own eyes, struggled with his people and never abandoned them, and in death was buried in a place no one knows, so that his grave would not become an object of worship. The righteous one always points beyond himself, never to himself.