Chad Gadya - Don't Mess With the Goat

There was once a goat, a kid goat, that my father bought for two silver coins, just one goat, just one goat. Or in the Aramaic - chad gadya, chad gadya.

And then a cat came and ate the goat

And the dog came and bit the cat.

So the stick came and hit the dog

And the fire came and burnt the stick

And the water came and put out the fire,

And the ox came and drunk the water

And the slaughterer came and slew the ox

And the angel of Death came and slew the slaughterer

Until finally the Holy Blessed One and slew the Angel of Death.

Just one goat, just one goat.

And thus ends the Passover Seder.

All the storytelling and celebrating and food, it all ends up in this a version of There Was an Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly.

I’ve been thinking about this goat for the past couple of weeks. A friend and colleague - the Rabbi of St Albans Masorti Synagogue, has just bought out a Haggadah, and a very lovely thing it is too. It’s clear, has an excellent contemporary translation, it looks beautiful, it even has a full transliteration ... but no goat.

You get to the end of the formal part of the seder and there’s a note that some people sing songs at this point, but he’s not going to include them all. And he doesn’t include the goat.

Now I used to be the Rabbi of St Albans Masorti Synagogue myself, and one of the things you have to get used to, when you used to be the Rabbi somewhere and then someone else comes along, is that they are going to do things differently from the way you did things. In general, I’m OK with that. But not the goat!

My memories of Seder are intimately tied up in memories of my grandfather of blessed memory - of course, right?, that’s entirely how memories of Seder should be tied up for all of us. And I remember my grandfather taking on the ever-lengthening verses determined to deliver even the very longest in a single breath, despite the bronchitis and the pleurisy and the pneumonia and everything that eventually caught up with him. And I remember the juddering intake of breath as he finally arrived at the ‘Dzabin Aba Bitrei Zuzei’ and I remember feeling that all was going to be alright in the world. And at that moment I would feel as if I had truly completed the Seder in all its prescriptions and proscriptions, and in that moment I would feel as if I had personally gone forth from Egypt.

Ah, dear Rabbi Adam, I wrote to him, I love the Haggadah, but what happened to the goat?

“You like the goat?” he responded as if I had taken leave of my senses. “Hardly educational, if fun. Perhaps it will make the next edition.”

Hmmm - you mess with the goat, you mess with my treasured memories of Pesach. He’s getting a copy of this sermon tomorrow.

It turns out we can date the arrival of the goat in the Haggadah with some specificity. These are a couple of pages from the famous Prague Haggadah of 1527. I went for the page where you start drinking the wine and dipping the Marror and breaking the Matzah - it’s always the dirtiest page in my Haggadot - and I’m delighted to see nothing has changed in some 500 years.[1] So the Haggadah finishes - and then there’s an extra page. And there, in a different script are the lyrics of the Chad Gadya, both in Hebrew-Aramaic and Yiddish.

By 1590 it’s appearing in the properly printed pages of Haggadot in Prague and elsewhere.[2] So it’s definitely older than that. Rabbi Yedidya Weil wrote in 1790 that he had “heard that they found this song… safeguarded and written on a parchment at the Beit Midrash Rokeah in Worms [dated to 1406]  and it was decided that it will be sung on the eve of Passover for all generations to come.” 

And there’s a C15 version of the song, in the back of a Jewish prayerbook belonging to a Jew from Provence. In that siddur, there is a rope used to tie up a cow - and the mouse eats the rope, and a cat eats the mouse and so on.

Some think that an even earlier inspiration is a famous Rabbinic text[3] which imagines Abraham being dragged before the local potentate, Nimrod, and commanded to bow down to Nimrod’s god - fire. But rain puts out the fire, teases Abraham, fine, says Nimrod, so bow down to rain, but the wind blows the rain away says Abraham, fine, says Nimrod, so bow down to the wind. And on that story goes. And that story goes right back to the Book of Jubilees[4] which is some 2,200 years old.

So we’ve been chasing down the Chad Gadya machine for really quite some time. Maybe it’s not just a kids’ ditty.

The Vilna Gaon, the greatest Rabbi of the C18, taught that the song was the story of the people of Israel. The goat is the promise of a special relationship with God, the birthright of the Children of Israel bought by Jacob from his twin brother Esau with bread - one silver coin, and soup - two silver coins. The cat is the envy of Jacob’s sons towards Joseph, the dog is Egypt, the stick - the staff of Moses used to bring the Israelites out of Egypt, the fire - the lust for idolatry, the water its extinguishing and so on until the Messiah comes.

I grew up with the interpretation that we - the people of Israel - are the goat, the two silver coins are the two tablets of the Torah, and each of the characters was an oppressing nation - the cat - Assyria, the dog - Babylon, the stick Persia and so on.

Yacov Emden, another of the greats of two hundred years ago, taught the song as the story of the soul, placed in our bodies and buffeted by the challenges of existence until ...

Until And then came the Holy Blessed One.

That’s the key line.

At the end of the chain of earthly destruction, God arrives.

That’s the difference between the song of the goat and the Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly. Life, we know, is nasty brutish and short, and it doesn’t matter if you have faith or if you don’t; if you are a cat the dog is coming for you and if you are a dog the stick is coming for you and the chance of a happily ever after is vanishingly small.

And it’s easy to get beaten down by the relentlessness of the Chad Gadya machine. It’s easy to feel that nothing is worth fighting for, it’s easy to feel that the powers of entropy, decay and violence will conquer our best attempts at life and joy and hope. And the message of the There Was an Old Lady is indeed that that is the case.

But the message of this glorious song about the goat is that goodness is not defeated by, even, all the brutality of the world. The message of the song about the goat is that in the end even the Angel of Death is defeated by a God rachum v’hanun - merciful and graceful. God is stronger than Death. The force of goodness in the universe is more powerful than the force of destruction.

For me - now - long since my child memories stopped sustaining my adult engagement with my faith, the real lesson of Chad Gadya is neither that everything tends to ruin, nor that everything will turn out just fine. I know neither is true. The message of the Chad Gadya is that there is a possibility for a different way that is not about relentless violence, death and murder. The message of the Chad Gadya is that hope for mercy and grace is possible in this world.

I think that’s the same understanding of the great Israeli poet, Yehuda Amichai

An Arab shepherd is searching for his goat on Mount Zion

And on the opposite mountain, I am searching

For my little boy.

And Arab shepherd and a Jewish father

Both in their temporary failure.

Our voices meet above the Sultans Pool

In the valley between us. Neither of us wants

the child or the goat to get caught in the wheels

of the terrible Had Gaya machine.

Afterwards we found them among the bushes

And our voices came back inside us, laughing and crying.

Searching for a goat or a son

Has always been the beginning

Of a new religion in these mountains.

The song Chad Gadya is about the possibility of escaping the Chad Gadya machine.

It’s about the possibility of there being meaning in this world beyond the experiences of biting cats, whacking sticks and the rest of it.

And I need that reminder. I need that as a reminder in a week when I will retell the suffering and the enslavement of my own people.

I need that reminder in a week where, God help us, there will be more pointless, gun-related killing in the United States, more needless deaths of refugees trying to escape their contemporary experiences of slavery and the rest of it.

I need the reminder of the Chag Gadya, Chad Gadya - I think we all do.

And I really hope it makes it into the second edition of my colleague’s Haggadah, and that this glorious millennia-old idea gets its moment to shine just before we all keel over with exhaustion at the end of a Seder, gloriously enjoyed by us all.

Chag Sameach, a wonderful Pesach

And Shabbat Shalom

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[1] http://primo.nli.org.il/primo_library/libweb/action/dlDisplay.do?vid=NLI&docId=NNL_ALEPH001162278

[2] http://www.jewish-music.huji.ac.il/content/had-gadya

[3] Genesis Rabba 38:11

[4] 12:12-14

Do We Have to Feed Everyone Who is Hungry?

I'm seeing more beggars on the streets, sitting outside supermarkets on scraps of cardboard, waving paper cups at me as I walk by. And the situation here is nothing compared to the influx of strangers in elsewhere in Europe. We are struggling - us liberal Westerners. We are struggling to live up to the demands of our souls, the demands of every articulation of human rights. We are struggling to know how to make this situation improve. We are struggling to protect our own interests as strangers make their own calls on resources we perceived as 'ours.' And we are struggling to understand the security implications of so many arrivals from Muslim countries. That goes for the entire British community. As Jews, in addition, we are struggling to work out whether we side principally with the indigenous who can advocate for self-protection or the outsider for whom a welcome for other outsiders is a necessary part of what makes this a society in which we wish to live.

The Talmud (Gittin 61) states there is an obligation to assist the non-Jewish poor along with the Jewish poor because of 'darkei shalom - the ways of peace,' but, tantalisingly, it's very difficult to penetrate the inner meaning of this term. On the one hand darkei shalom could be a moral charge, a command to lift all humanity from the grip of suffering and poverty. On the other hand darkei shalom could be a utilitarian piece of advice, be nice to the non-Jews so they won't hate you back. If the obligation to act for the sake of darkei shalom is moral then whether we like or trust these new hungry strangers we are obligated to open our wallets and our hearts. But if the obligation is utilitarian, if this is just political advice, then we can weigh up the pros and cons of today's challenges with cool calculation.

Sifting through the great Rabbinic commentators of our tradition it's hard to understand which stance is more normative. Maimonides in Hilchot Melachim suggests two Biblical prooftexts for the obligation to take care of the non-Jewish poor for reasons of darkei shalom, 'God is good to all in God's mercy,' and 'Her ways are of gentleness and all her paths are of peace.' This seems to be a vote in favour of a universal Jewish morality. But elsewhere in his great legal code (Hilchot Avodah Zarah), we read that darkei shalom obligations only apply 'when Israel is exiled among the nations,' and when Israel has 'the upper hand over the nations' not only do these obligations not apply, but one doesn't even tolerate an idolater to walk the streets. That suggests the driving force behind the principle of darkei shalom is solely the avoidance of enmity. Elsewhere - in commenting on the obligation to stand in honour of the funeral procession of a non-Jew (another obligation imposed, in the Talmud, because of darkei shalom) it seems that Joseph Caro sides with the universalists and the Bach sides with the utilitarians. It is complex.

Ultimately, I side with the moralists, partly because of my deepest conviction that the image of God resides in all of humanity, and partly because of the deep belief that our redemption from slavery has to stand for more than our narrowest sense of self-interest. Our journey from bondage to freedom cannot be secured when others are left in darkness.

These are mighty - and eminently Seder-night-suitable - questions. They are questions about how we understand ourselves as Jews living in twenty-first century Britain. I hope their discussion can enrich your engagement with this most special part of our journey through the Jewish year. I hope you will side with me, with the moralists. And I hope that your intellectual engagement will drive a practical, and equally a financial, commitment to be involved in the bettering of the lives of today's strangers. In particular I am delighted to commend the work of World Jewish Relief supporting both impoverished Jewish communities and non-Jewish refugee communities in our name, and for the sake of darkei shalom. Please look at their web site and consider supporting their important work.

Our actions and charitable gifts won't solve the problems of the hungry, but it will allow us to utter the words, 'may all who are hungry come and eat,' with a degree of honesty and the sense of pride we should feel at the Seder night.

On This Night We Lean

Hope this is of interest.

I’m partic interested in the democratic nature of the unique democratic element of the command to lean specifically including the poor, on Pesach,

 

Happy Pesach,

 

 

Mishnah Pesachim 10:4 (as per Bavli)

They mix the second cup and the at this point the child asks the parent, and if there is no knowledge in the child, the parent teaches them –

How different this night is from all other nights.

For on all nights we eat chametz or matzah, this night only matzah

For on all nights we eat other vegetables, this night maror.

For on all nights we eat roast, boiled or stewed meat, this night roasted.

For on all nights we dip once, this night twice.

 

Mishnah Pesachim 10:4 (as per Rambam)

They mix the second cup and the at this point the child asks and reads -

How is this night different from all other nights;

For on all nights we don’t even dip once, this night twice.

For on all nights we eat chametz or matzah, this night only matzah

For on all nights we eat roast, boiled or stewed meat, this night roasted.

For on all nights we eat other vegetables, this night maror.

For on all other nights we eat either sitting or reclining, this night we all lean?

 

Ester 1:6

There were hangings of white, green and blue, fastened with cords of fine linen and purple to silver rings and pillars of marble; the beds were of gold and silver, upon a pavement of alabaster, marble, mother of pearl, and precious stones.

 

Tosefta Brachot 5:5

What is the arrangement of reclining? Where there are two cushions, the most important person reclines at the head of the first. The second is below him.

Where there are three cushions, the most important person reclines at the head of the middle, the second is above him, the third is below him.

 

Josh Kulp: The Schechter Hagadah

Reclining was customary in Greco-Roman banquets and helped distinguish normal eating from formal ‘dining.’ In the Greco-Roman world banquets were typically eaten while reclining on a triclinium, three elevated mattresses arranged in the shape of the Greek letter Pi. In front of each mattress was a table which was brought to the diner and taken away at various points in the meal. People reclined to their left, so that they could use their right hand to eat.

 

Floor Mosaic, Sephoris

 

Pesachim 108a

Leaning to the right is not reclining. Moreover he may put [food] into the windpipe before the gullet, and endanger himself.

 

Mishnah Brachot 6:6

When they sit [yoshvin] each blesses themselves. When they lean [heyseivu] one blesses for all.

Ovadiah M’Bartenura

Sitting without leaning is a sign that they are not coming together to eat.

 

Mishnah Pesachim 10:1

On the eve of Pesach … even the poor of Israel don’t eat until they are leaning[JG1]  .

 

Talmud Yerushalmi

Said Rabbi Levi, it is the way of slaves to eat standing up, but here they eat leaning to make it known that they have left servitude for freedom.

 

Exodus 13

So God led the people around [vayaasev], through the way of the wilderness of the Red Sea.

Exodus Rabba 20:18

The Rabbis have learned from this that even the poorest man in Israel must not eat without leaning for so the Holy Blessed One did for them as it says ‘So God made the people recline [vayaasev[JG2]  ].’

 

Yalkut Halachot Aramchal

HaRav Rabeinu Haim wrote that leaning to the left is spefically in their time, as they would lean on beds, now its fine with any kind of leaning. And HaRav Rabeinu Haim explained that on the contrary, the way of kings nowadays is to eat without leaning [slouching[JG3]  ?],

However since we usually eat without leaning during the year, this is now a marker of freedom.

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 The newness is the democracy

 Tenuous

 Maharil - not freedom, on the contrary, looks like you are ill.

Contemp sensibilities - German Reform

Top Ten Tips for a Liberating Pesach

Top Ten Tips for a Liberating Pesach

i. A Bittul beats ballistic bothering.
You don’t have to drive yourself mad in an all-encompassing war of destruction waged on Chametz. The minimum standard is remove everything smaller than the size of an olive and then perform a Bittul – a nullification – “all Chametz which is in possession, which I have not seen or removed or of which I am not aware, is nullified and ownerless as the dust of the earth.”  The Bittul is done once on Sunday evening and then again on Monday late morning.

ii. Invite people to the Seder who can’t be there. 
I always like to start the Seder by inviting everyone to welcome one guest, one person who has passed away, or can’t be there, or just someone you would love to welcome to experience our story. It sets the mood and it brings the community around your personal Seder together.

iii. Prep the Seder
Don’t open the Hagadah for the first time as you sit down at the Seder table. Buy a new Hagadah, one with commentaries, spend a while flicking through, pick some aspects that mean more to you. If you are not leading, let the leader know you would like to share something at a certain point. If you need more inspiration, try the internet. Tzedek and JCORE are among many organisations that have special guides with discussion material and questions. Also try www.myjewishlearning.com

iv. Karpas is Hebrew for crudités
The desultory sprig of parsley is not what Karpas is all about. It’s a Greek custom of putting out snacks before the meal to allow the conversation to flow more easily. We make dips and put out a range of vegetables. Top tip – artichokes, perfect for dipping, noshing and accompanying schmoozing.

v. It’s about freedom
Don’t be imprisoned by the language of the Seder. At some point you need to have a discussion about the nature of freedom. What does freedom mean, what does it mean to be Jewish and free - free from what, responsible for what? What would your values be if no-one was forcing you to do otherwise? What is stopping you from pursuing those values right now?

vi. Do something daft
The Rabbis of the Talmud suggested throwing toasted nuts around the Seder table to keep the kids occupied. We put out finger-puppets, oranges, Miriam’s cup, ah, loads of stuff – anything to keep people interested and engaged.

vii. If at first you don’t succeed
I love the ability to celebrate two Sedarim. And I love the ability to have a more formal and a less formal experience. The two Sedarim shouldn’t be the same. If you will be with the same people, around the same table, with the same food, then change the questions. Pick different conversations.

viii. Allow yourself to be defined
I remember a Pesach, I must have been 14, when I had to take a packed Pesachdik lunch into school; Tupperware and Matzah crumbs. It was a tremendous moment allowing myself to be defined by my actions. I was someone who cared enough about my Jewish identity to do this, and decline doing that. Through my observance I found a deeper relationship to my own identity. And to this day I find I make the clearest statements of my engagement with my faith over Pesach, with the cleaning and shopping and everything else. And that is OK. In fact, it makes me who I am.

ix. You have captured my heart
Ah, the Song of Songs, the Biblical book, said Rabbi Akiva, that makes the whole Torah worthwhile. We’ll be singing it on Shabbat Chol Ha-Moed Pesach, together with the Song of the Sea on the seventh day, and Hallel and … these are great Synagogue services, full of melody and joy. It’s a wonderful opportunity to bring, or find, in Shul the communal public engagement with Pesach, to counterbalance the private, familial celebrations of Seder Night. (On the subject of Shul, there are, of course, double points on offer to those able to join us for weekday Yom Tov services.)

x. In every generation a person should see themselves …
Take responsibility for your own Passover journey. If you love it, be proud. If it doesn’t speak to you … take responsibility for finding a way to make this incredible story and the rich universe of rituals that surround it resonate with you. There is no-one else to blame. This is our own life we are celebrating. It would be a terrible thing to run out of the ability to acknowledge our own freedom.

Why oh Why oh Why

Pesach is Coming - Why oh why oh why?

This week we read a Maftir portion designed to awaken us to the arrival of Pesach. Rosh Hodesh Nissan will be marked this coming Monday night & Tuesday and the Sedarim beckon on the 14th (& 15th) of Nissan, this year falling on Monday 29th and Tuesday 30th March. I want to suggest three reasons why; why care about Chametz, why clean and shop and cook and go to shul and don’t go to work, and even why we should put up with the grumbling sense that this is all very expensive. (I will have more to say about the financial piece next week).

Pesach is an obligation. We are ‘mechuyah.’ The word shares an etymological root with words like ‘debt.’ We get to live, to breath and we therefore owe an obligation. As Jews we get to be free, we are not enslaved, we could easily be, and therefore we owe an obligation. As Jews we get Torah, a world-view which enhances the brightest moments and holds us in our darkest times, we get to inherit a tradition of beauty, might, spirit and wit, and therefore we owe an obligation. Pesach, with all its cleaning and cooking is how a Jew pays-back in deference to the incredible miracle of our existence. The place of God as obligator is, for some central, and for others peripheral. I would encourage those for whom God plays only a peripheral role as obligator to consider this difference as semantic, rather than substantial. We have so much to be grateful for, we owe this debt to whomever or whatever we consider awarded us such extraordinary bounty.

Pesach is a ritualised spring-clean. Leaven is fermented; it is part of last year’s harvest. At Pesach we forgo leaven; we use only the new harvest. Pesach is a time to clear out old stock. We check the inventory not just of our cupboards, but also of ourselves. We have the opportunity to scrub away at the accreted grime of another year and through our cleaning and observance of Kashrut we become renewed.

Chametz also represents, mystically speaking, the aspect of impurity surrounding the holy spark inside every human. Other language used, in the tradition, to approach the same idea is that of a husk, surrounding a kernel. We all need husks to protect us. We all need to get mixed-into the day-to-day world with its very real challenges (we all need to knead?). But we also need a moment to cast away the husk, to seek out and discard the Hametz and to allow the pure divine spark inside each of us to shine freely. That is the spiritual essence of Pesach.

Two weeks, two days and counting.

The Lotus in the Jew

In my main Passover Sermon I looked at the relationship between contemporary Tibet oppression and our ancient persecution.

I was forcibly struck not only by the extraordinarily relevant title of the Dalai Lama’s autobiography, but also by the connection two of the most striking moments in his life and our own Rabbinic heritage.

The violence of oppression of a ‘nation apart’ as the hagada refers to the Jews is mirrored in the oppression of the Tibetans and the tale of the Dalai Lama fleeing his ancestral home and the home of his faith and nation to seek to construct an exile-based identity matched so neatly that of one of our own founding religious fathers, Yochanan Ben Zakkai.

The connection between the Dalai Lama and Yochanan Ben Zakkai was, at least to my knowledge, fist remarked upon in the lovely work The Jew in the Lotus; a tale of a group of Rabbis and Jewish educators who go on a visit to meet the Dalai Lama in 1990.

Some relevant texts are posted below.

We pray for the freedom of all peoples.

From Freedom In Exile: Autobiography of the Dalai Lama

The methods that the Chinese used to intimidate the population [in the Spring of 1957] were so abhorrent that they were almost beyond the capacity of my imagination. It was not until I read the report published in 1959 by the International Commission of Jurists that I fully accepted what I had heard: crucifixion, vivisection, disembowelling and dismemberment of victims was commonplace. So too were beheading, burning, beating to death and burying alive, not to mention dragging people behind galloping horses until they died or handing them upside down or throwing them bound hand and foot into icy water. And in order to prevent them shouting out, “Long live the Dalai Lama” on the way to execution, they tore out their tongues with meathooks.^[1]

From Midrash Eleh Ezkerah: Yom Kippur Liturgy

Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel begged for his execution to be the first and they shed his blood as if he were an ox and when his head was severed Rabbi Yishmail took it and wailed.

They flailed the skin from his face.

They took out Rabbi Akiva and lacerated his flesh with sharp-toothed combs and burnt Rabbi Chananya ben Teradion.^[2]

Freedom In Exile – Fleeing Lhasa for Dharamasala

At a few minutes before ten o’clock, now wearing unfamiliar trousers and a long, black coat, I threw a rifle over my right shoulder and, rolled up, an old thangka that had belonged to the Second Dalai Lama over my left. Then, slipping my glasses into my pocket, I stepped outside. I was very frightened. I was joined by two soldiers, with them I groped my way across the park, hardly able to see a thing. ON reaching the outer wall we joined up with Chikyah Kempo who, I could just make out, was armed with a sword. He spoke to me in a low reassuring voice. I was to keep by him at all costs. Going through the gate, he announce boldly to the people gathered there that he was undertaking a routine tour of inspection. With that, we were allowed to pass through. No further words were spoken.^[3]

Talmud Gittin 56a

Abba Sikra the head of the guard in Jerusalem was the son of the sister of Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai.

Yachanan sent for him saying, Come to visit me privately. When he came he said to him, How long are you going to carry on in this way and kill all the people with starvation? He replied: What can I do? If I say a word to them, they will kill me. He said: Devise some plan for me to escape. Perhaps I shall be able to save a little. He said to him: Pretend to be ill, and let everyone come to inquire about you. Bring something evil smelling and put it by you so that they will say you are dead. Let then your disciples get under your bed, but no others, so that they shall not notice that you are still light, since they know that a living being is lighter than a corpse. He did so, and Rabbi Eliezer went under the bier from one side and Rabbi Joshua from the other. When they reached the door, some men wanted to put a lance through the bier. He said to them: Shall [the Romans] say. They have pierced their Master? They wanted to give it a push. He said to them: Shall they say that they pushed their Master? They opened a town gate for him and he got out.

The Jew In the Lotus, Rodger Kamenetz^[4]

As [Rabbi Yitz Greenberg] told the story of the first-century sages, I felt the power of our being there, as Jews. Dharamasala as much as one can argue by analogy, is surely the Tibetan Yavneh. In this small Indian town, with no more than five thousand souls, lies the main hope for the survival of Tibetan Buddhism. And I could see – with a little squinting – the Dalai Lama and his leading abbots and monks as the Buddhist equivalent of Yochanan ben Zakkai and his sages.

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^[1] P. 136

^[2] From Midrash Eleh Ezkerah Yom Kippur Litrugy

^[3] Pp. 151-152

^[4] P. 95

Let's hear it for Moses

Poor ol’ Moses doesn’t even get a look in a the beginning of Pesach.

I thought it might be interesting to cull some of the glorious Midrashim on him for study at the end of the Festival.

These are my own translation of material, largely, gleamed from a fabulous essay at the back of Menachem Kasher’s ‘Israel Passover Haggadah.’

1. Vayikra Rabba 1:3

Go and learn that of all the names that Moshes had, the Holy Blessed One only ever called him by the name that Batya the daughter of Pharaoh called him by. As it says and she called him Moses since she saved him out from death.

And not only that, the Holy Blessed One said to Batya daughter of Pharaoh , ‘Moses was not your son, but you called him your son, so too even though you are not my daughter I will call you my daughter as it says, these are the children of Batya (I Chron 4) – Bat Yah.

2. Shmot Rabba 4

And when the Holy Blessed One said to Moses, And now go and I will send you to Pharaoh , he said to Him, ‘Master of the World, I can’t since Jethro has received me with honour and opened his house to me and I am as a son for him, and one for whom a door is opened is obliged to his neighbour. I can’t go without his permission. Therefore it states And Moses when and returned to Jethro his father-in-law. He went to get permission to go to Egypt.

3. Guide to the Perplexed 2:45

Moses didn’t only intervene in the disputes of his brethren, he would intervene for those who were part of the covenant and those who were not part of the covenant, whenever their hand was upon the lowest ones in society as it says And the priest of Midian had seven daughters who came to draw water but the sheperds drove them off. So Moses helped them and watered their flock. Even though he was at that time a ger – stranger and he had no-one to defend him he wanted to give his soul to rescue the oppressed from the hands of their oppressors and therefore he went to bring out the pursued from the hand of the pursuer and the Hebrews from the hand of the Egyptians. And since his heart was pure and strong and he was pure and strong and his eyes were pure to the point of not seeing wickedness or evil, the Holy Blessed One chose him as the shepherd of Israel.

4. Shmot Rabba 3, Midrash Aseret HaDibrot, Tanhuma Vayikra 3

Then Moses hid his face for he was afraid [yirah] to look at God. Moses said, ‘I stand before the God of my ancestors, shall I not hide my face?’ At that moment the Holy Blessed One said to him, ‘When I revealed Myself to you, you honoured me by covering your face. By Your Life! You shall survive 40 days and night with nothing to eat or drink, sustaining your self by the glory of the divine presence as it says Moses did not know there were beams of light from his face while speaking to God.

The Holy Blessed One looked in each and every generation and could find anyone more appropriate to receive Torah than Moses. And how did Moses merit being hatan Torah? Because of the humidly and awe within him. As it says Then Moses hid his face for he was awed [yirah] looking at God.

Since Moses fled from honour, honour pursued him to fulfil the verse A person’s pride will bring them low, but the humble will attain honour. (Prov 29)

5. Sifrei Behalotecha 91

And God spoke to Moses and Aaron and gave them a charge regarding the Children of Israel (Ex 6)

The Holy Blessed One said to them, ‘Know that my children, they are rebellious, they are wearisome- tarchanim, they are overly excitable. There is a condition for your leadership of them that they will curse you and hurl stones at you. And this lesson goes for every leader and judge, they need to suffer the torech of the community and bear it like Moses our Rabbi, for it is said of him as a wet nurse carries a suckling child

6. Midrash Tanhumah, V’era 5

And Moses and Aaron came [before Pharaoh] (Exodus 5:1)

Rabbi Hiyya son of Abba said, ‘This was coronation day, when all the Kings came to crown Pharaoh because he was the Emperor. While they were placing crowns on Pharaoh’s head, Moses and Aaron stood at the entrance to the hallway. Pharaoh’s guards told him, ‘Two elders are standing at the doorway’

Pharaoh asked ‘Have they got a crown?’ The guard replied ‘no.’ ‘Then let them enter last.’ When Moses and Aaron finally stood before Pharaoh he said, ‘What do you want?’ Moses replied ‘The God of the Hebrews has sent be to you to say, “Let my people go so they will serve me.”’ (Ex 7:16).

Pharaoh replied angrily, ‘Who is this GOD that I should listen to His voice. Doesn’t He know enough to send me a crown, rather you come with words.’

Rabbi Levi said, ‘Pharaoh then took the list of gods and began to read, ‘The god of Edom, the god of Moab, the god of Sidon, yada yada yada,’ and he said to them, ‘There, I have finished all my records and your god’s not on the list.’

So Moses and Aaron said to Pharaoh, ‘Fool, the gods you mentioned are all dead. But the LORD is a living God, Ruler of the Universe.’

Pharaoh asked, ‘Is he young or old? How many cities has he captured? How many states has he humbled? How long has he been in power?

They replied, the strength and power of our God fills the world. God was before the world was created and God will be at the end of the worlds. He fashioned you and placed within you the breath of life.’

What else has he done? Pharaoh asked.

They replied, ‘God stretched out the heavens and the earth and God’s voice carved out flames of fire,^[1] God rips open the mountains and smashed the rocks.^[2] God’s bow is of fire, God’s arrows are flames, God’s spear is a torch, God’s shield is the clouds, God’s sword is lightening, God forms the mountains and the hills; covers the mounts with grass, the heavens with clouds, God brings down the rain and the dew and gets the plants to grow and the fruits to ripen. God afflicts the beasts and forms the embryo in the womb of the mother and brings it forth into the light of the world.’

Pharoh said, ‘You are speaking lies, because I am the Lord of the world, and I created myself and the Nile, as it says, mine is the Nile and I made it (Ezekiel 29:3)^[3]

7. Brachot 32a

And GOD said to me [Moses], ‘Go, Descend’ (Deut 9) What is meant by ‘Go, Descend.’ Rabbi Elazar said the Holy Blessed One said to him, ‘Moses, descend from your greatness. For everything I gave you was for the sake of Israel. And now Israel has sinned, what are you to me?’ Immediately Moses became powerless and he had no strength to speak.

But when God said, ‘Let Me alone and I will destroy them’ (Deut 9) Moses said “This thing depends on me,” and immediately he stood up and was seized with prayer and pleaded for mercy.

Mashal - To a king who was angry with his son and beat him severely. And [the King’s] beloved was sitting before him, scared to say a word. The king said, ‘Were it not for my beloved sitting before me I would kill you.’ [The beloved] said, “This thing depends on me.” Immediately he stood up and rescued him.

Rabbi Abbahu said: ‘Were this not a written verse, it would be impossible to say this. This is to teach that Moses seized the Holy Blessed One, like one who seizes their friend by their garment and said before God: Sovereign of the Universe, I will not let You go until You forgive and pardon them.

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^[1] (Psalms 29:7)

^[2] (I Kings 19:11)

^[3] Full verse – Thus said God, I am going to deal with you, Pharaoh who said “Mine is the Nile and I made it.’