משה רבינו

When Pharaoh decreed that every baby boy be drowned, a child was born in Egypt to Amram and Yocheved of the tribe of Levi. His mother hid him three months, then placed him in a basket on the Nile, and Pharaoh's daughter drew him from the water and named him Moshe (Exodus 2). So the redeemer of Israel grew up, of all places, in the oppressor's palace, between two worlds.

When he grew he went out to his brothers and saw their suffering. He struck an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew, and the next day, seeing two Hebrews quarreling, he understood the matter was known and fled to Midian. There, by the well, he defended Yitro's daughters from the shepherds and married Tzipporah. He was a shepherd, until the flock led him to the mountain of God.

At the bush that burned without being consumed God revealed Himself and sent him to bring Israel out (Exodus 3). Moshe refused again and again, 'who am I,' out of humility and a heavy tongue, until he accepted the greatest mission in human history, with his brother Aharon given to him as a mouth.

Through the ten plagues God broke Egypt's pride, and at the splitting of the sea (Exodus 14) he brought a nation of slaves into freedom. The redemption was worked not by a human sword but by the hand of God, and Moshe taught that true freedom is not only the breaking of chains but entering under the yoke of Heaven.

At Sinai he ascended into the thick cloud and received the Torah for all generations (Exodus 19-20), forty days and nights without bread, face to face, a level of prophecy never equaled.

Then came the crisis: the sin of the golden calf. Moshe shattered the tablets, yet at once stood in the breach and pleaded for his people: 'and if not, erase me from Your book' (Exodus 32), then ascended again and brought down the second tablets and the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy (Exodus 34). So he taught that a leader's greatness is measured by his readiness to give his life for those who fail. Years later, at the waters of Meribah, he was punished not to enter the land (Numbers 20), a strict reckoning for one so great.

The humblest of all men on the face of the earth (Numbers 12:3), he led the people forty years in the wilderness and carried them as a nurse carries an infant. On Mount Nevo he saw the land and did not enter it, and 'no prophet arose again in Israel like Moshe' (Deuteronomy 34:10). Every Jew who learns Torah is his student, and our Torah bears his name: the Torah of Moshe.