The local news station interviewed a 90-year-old lady because she had just gotten married for the fourth time.
The interviewer asked about her life, what it felt like to be married again at 90, and then about her new husband's occupation. "He's a funeral director," she answered.
"Interesting," the newsman thought. He then asked her if she wouldn't mind telling him a little about her first three husbands and what they did for a living.
She paused, needing time to reflect on all those years. After a short time, a smile came to her face and she answered proudly, explaining that she had first married a banker when she was in her 20s, then a circus ringmaster when in her 40s, and a preacher when in her 70s, and now - in her 90's - a funeral director.
The interviewer looked at her, quite astonished, and asked why she had married four men with diverse careers.
She smiled and explained, "I married one for the money, two for the show, three to get ready, and four to go."
Jewish trivia: How many times is the name Moshe mentioned in the Torah? 628 times, hundreds of times more than any other name.
There is a reason for it. Moses is the most central Torah figure—and probably in all Jewish history.
Yet "Moshe" was not his real name. He was given this name years after he was born. As the Torah relates, Pharaoh's daughter went down to bathe by the river, where she saw a basket among the reeds. She opened it and saw a boy crying. His mom placed Little Moses there when he was three months old. She took the infant and raised him as a son, while his biological mother Yocheved nursed him.
Then the Torah says this week’s Parsha Shemot:
The child grew up, and she [the nursing mother] brought him to the daughter of Pharaoh, and he was a son to her. She called his name Moses, as she said, 'For I drew him from the water.'
Young Moses must have had a name by then, a name given to him by his biological Jewish parents. Yet, the Torah never once mentions that name. It only tells us the name given to him by an Egyptian princess, naming him years after his birth!
Yet the Egyptian name has become his eternal name. Does it make sense that the greatest Jewish leader would not even have a Hebrew name?
The Talmud records his mother's name, either Tov or Tuvya. The Midrash records his father's name, Chaver, which means a friend.
Yet the Torah ignores the names given to him by his Jewish parents at birth, using instead the name given him by a stranger—by an Egyptian gentile woman, the daughter of the Pharaoh who gave him an Egyptian name years after his birth! In the words of the Midrash:
G-d said to Moses: I swear to you, from all the names given to you, I will not call you only by the name designated by Batya the daughter of Pharaoh. “She called his name Moses,” “And G-d called out to Moses.”
Why did her name triumph over all others, eclipsing them for eternity?
Sure, the daughter of Pharaoh saved this boy. But why does her name reign supreme?
The answer becomes dramatically clear when we examine the first story in the Torah about Moses as an adult.
It happened when Moses grew up and went out to his brethren and saw their burdens. And he saw an Egyptian man striking a Hebrew man. He looked here and there, and he saw there was no man; so, he struck the Egyptian down and hid him in the sand.
As the Torah relates, an informer spread the story; when Pharaoh heard of the event, he wanted to kill him. Moses fled to another country.
Let’s analyze the background of the story. Moses grew up in Pharaoh’s palace. He lived in luxury, prosperity, and tranquility. Pharaoh’s daughter raised him as a son. The Egyptian monarchy has been kind to this young Hebrew lad.
In contrast, the entire Jewish nation has been oppressed and persecuted. Egyptian taskmasters would regularly beat Jews, who were slave laborers. The entire Egypt turned into a gigantic concentration camp. What Moses saw that day was sadly the routine.
Yet, Moses the Egyptian prince, goes out and when he sees a Jew being beaten, kills the Egyptian officer, while protecting a Hebrew slave—an act of treason toward the king who is his step-grandfather, and now wants his head!
If at least something substantial would be gained, I can understand. But what did he stand to gain from killing one Egyptian officer when the entire Jewish nation was enslaved by the brutal Egyptian regime, worked, beaten, persecuted, and killed mercilessly? Even this very Jew himself may be killed, if not today, then tomorrow, or the next month.
Yet there was something far more at stake here.
Moses was a stepson, or grandson, of Pharaoh. He was raised as a beloved child in the Egyptian palace. Knowing what would become of Moses later, we can infer that Pharaoh and his daughter were enamored by this talented, brilliant, noble, charismatic, heroic, fearless, humble, and majestic figure, a man who—as we would discover later—can change the world. Indeed, as the Midrash teaches, Pharaoh appointed Moses as the Chief of Staff of the palace. Pharaoh was no dummy: you don’t do away with such a brain and talent in your midst! He was being groomed for leadership. Likely, Moses would become Pharaoh’s heir or at least one of Egypt’s most dominant figures.
Now, if you were in Moses’ position, and you observed a Jew being beaten, what would you have done?
I might have thought to myself: Stay put. Keep your anger to yourself. Let the Egyptian get away with his crime. These monsters are doing this regularly. You remain the loyal Egyptian prince, dedicated (at least on the outside) to your grandfather, the most powerful person in this country, the Pharaoh. Slowly but surely, climb the ranks. Play the game of politics and diplomacy. Prove your loyalty and efficiency. If you play this game of chess rightly, you might become Pharaoh’s successor. As the next king of Egypt, you will save not one Jew, but three million of them!
Imagine: it is 1942. You are in Hitler’s inner circle. He places you in charge of The Berghof (Hitler’s home in the Bavarian Alps.) You observe an SS guard beating a Jew to death. You can kill the SS guard and save the Jew for a few minutes, hours, days, weeks, or months. Your “true colors” will emerge; Hitler would have you executed immediately.
Alternatively, you can turn a blind eye to the beating, telling yourself that this brutality has been going on for years now, and is affecting millions of people. Taking down one Nazi would not end the Holocaust. You think to yourself: Maybe, if I play my game correctly, Hitler will appoint me as his heir, and then I won’t save one innocent Jew—I will put an end to the genocide!
Yet, we know the path Moses chose. He didn’t hesitate for a moment, and cut down the life of the SS guard, right there, right then, and hid his body in the sand. At that moment he ended the dream: Not only would he not become the king of Egypt; he would become an outlawed fugitive, running for his life.
Moses, where is your little long-term vision? Had you just kept quiet, you could have done so much more. Sure, these Jews would have died, but down the line—in five years, ten years, twenty years, when Pharaoh dies, you become the new boss and you change everything. Isn’t it worth it?
And worst come to worst, even if you will not make it to the throne, at least you can remain in Egypt, as a prominent figure in Pharaoh’s circle, and yield some secret influence to help a Jew here and there confidentially.
Dear Moses had you just restrained yourself, in a few years you would have been rewarded the Noble Prize for Peach, and become a household name, credited with ending the Egyptian genocide. Instead, in a moment of ire, you lost it all. Now, for the rest of your life, you will be a homeless refugee.
He could Not Let a Jew Die
The Rebbe explained Moses’ behavior.
Moses could not pay heed to any calculations, because he saw a Jew being beaten to death.
In the face of such brutality, he could not respond otherwise. All the logic in the world went flying out the window as he saw an innocent person being tortured to death. He struck the murderer and buried him in the sand.
This is what made Moses who he was: The love of Israel, and the love for truth, justice, and compassion, seared into the very essence of his being, and his soul.
Of course, Moses was not trying to be irresponsible and get caught. That’s why he tried ensuring no one was looking and he hid the body. Yet, he did not allow cold logic to keep him safe and distant while allowing the Jew to die.
For Whom did Moses give up so much?
The Jew being beaten was no great saint… As the Midrash says, his name was Datan!
He was the most infamous Jewish troublemaker in Egypt and the desert, who has always rebelled against Moses.
It was this Jew—a very lowly person, with profound moral flaws, and later the greatest enemy of Moses—for whom Moses sacrificed his entire future and his very life!
Paradoxically, it was this quality in Moses, which not only did not derail his success of saving his people but to the contrary, turned him into the most well-known human being in history and the man who has changed history.
Had Moses done nothing, his name would have been added to the endless list of noblemen who lived, died, and their bodies became fodder for the warms. It was precisely this single act of compassion, courage, and caring, that turned him into the man who can later confront the Pharaoh, subdue him, and emancipate his oppressed people, thus triggering the march of history toward freedom.
All the Jewish names given to Moses could not convey his true sacrifice and why he was chosen by the Creator to change the vocabulary of humanity. It was the name given to him by the daughter of Pharaoh which captures the magnitude of the story: Here was an Egyptian prince, a man who had an Egyptian name, a name granted to him by the daughter of the king who saw him as her son and possible his heir. There was a person destined to join the Pantheons of the Egyptian demigods who exercised full power over their subjects. And yet, in a single moment of truth, he said goodbye to all of this, because right now he could save a Jew!
It was the name that helped inspire Moses to this moment. The name Moshe, “for he was drawn out of water,” forever reminded him of his role in the world. When I was an infant languishing in a basket in the Nile, waiting to die, an Egyptian woman who owed me nothing, who was the daughter of the man who wanted all Jewish male newborns dead, could have easily ignored me, and go on with her affairs. Yet, she stopped. She took notice. And she saved my life.
Now, years later, another “Egyptian” prince—her son—can also ignore a Jewish man waiting to die.
As Moses stood there, his name Moshe—the one drawn from the water—would not allow him to rest. I am here because an Egyptian princess sacrificed herself to save me; must I not do the same for others?
Do you know who can teach us this lesson best? A French Jew by the name of Adolfo Kaminsky is 93 years old today. He is one of the great unsung heroes of our times.
It’s 1944, in Nazi-occupied Paris. Adolfo Kaminsky and three Jewish friends are operating a clandestine laboratory to make false passports for children and families about to be deported from France to Nazi death camps. The youngest member of the group, the lab’s technical director, is Adolfo. He is practically a child himself: age 18.
For years he never told his story. A book about him, “Adolfo Kaminsky: A Forger’s Life,” came out several years ago.
Kaminsky was a professional forger. After dropping out of school at 13 to help support his family, he was apprenticed to a clothes dyer, a precursor to the modern dry cleaner. He spent hours figuring out how to remove stains, then read chemistry textbooks and did experiments at home. “My boss was a chemical engineer, and would answer all of my questions,” he said.
When Hitler marched into France in 1941, and Jews began being deported to their deaths, Kaminsky became a skilled forger. The man single handedly forged thousands upon thousands of passports. He gave these passports to French Jewish children allowing them to be smuggled out of France and allowed entry into other countries as supposed citizens of those other countries.
Listen to this: This 18-year-old boy saved between 7,000 to 10,000 Jewish children in France! Some 11,400 children were deported and killed.
In a documentary about him he talks about the day when learned that in three days, 900 Jewish children would be arrested and sent to the gas chambers. This means he had three days to forge from scratch 900 passports to show that they are citizens of other countries!
He would have to stay up for nights, to get this work done. Remember, every passport had to be forged with exceptional skill. As he put it once, “one tiny error and that person gets sent to their death.” This was a strenuous job, to say the least. How would he manage to forge 900 passports?
“I made a simple calculation: In one hour I can make 30 documents; if I sleep for an hour, 30 people will die.”
He stayed up and finished all the documents. All the children were saved.
Here is a man who realized how much was at stake. “If I sleep for an hour, 30 people will die.” Sleep he did not.
And you know what inspires me most about Kaminsky? As he was interviewed in an article about his new book, he was asked how he feels about his accomplishments. And he responded: I think mostly about all the children I could not save! The lesson is vital and clear.
Sometimes, we see an injustice in our midst—a Jew being beaten, physically, emotionally, or spiritually. We have good calculations why to do nothing. We justify our passivity by claiming to ourselves that by staying put, we can achieve far more long-term. “Let me work with and through the system; it will take years, but it will be far more effective.”
I am living in a palace—of calm and comfort. Do you want me to endanger all of it, so that I can stand up for a helpless victim when I am not even accomplishing much?
How many youngsters and adults have lost their lives or their souls from such types of calculations?
Moses taught us otherwise—and that made him Moses!
When you see an innocent soul suffering, never stand by idly. Do something! Save the person.
It is true in terms of physical suffering, but also emotional and spiritual suffering. We sometimes encounter a young Jew being beaten spiritually—his or her soul is suffering. When you see this, don’t go back to your palace and sigh; take a stand. Save a soul, embrace a heart, kindle a spark. Indifference is simply not a Jewish option.
It is the first story told about the first Jewish leader—and it remains the most important story of our people.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Yoseph Geisinsky
Mavis Wanczyk wrote...