Part I. A Difficult Nation
The Great Refusal
When Hakadosh Baruch Hu proposed to Moshe Rabbeinu that he should become the leader, that he should return to his people in Mitzrayim and lead them to freedom, everybody knows the story of how extremely reluctant Moshe was. He refused seven times! Seven times the Almighty had to urge him.
Now a great man like Moshe when he's offered a noble mission such as this – and it’s Hakadosh Baruch Hu doing the offering – it seems to us he should have accepted it immediately. That would have been the most proper thing, to not refuse even once.
Rules of Refusal
You know, there's a rule if you're sitting in the synagogue and someone proposes that you should go to the amud and conduct the prayers, so the proper etiquette is that at first you should refuse. That's an expression of humility. At the second request you should shrug yourself a little bit as if you're undecided. And at the third time, the third request, you should run to the amud. We understand that it’s derech eretz to not show what you really are, that you really are eager to lead the prayers, so you hesitate a little.
But that's only when a private person is asking you to lead the prayers. Suppose however that an adam chashuv, let's say the rav, the rabbi, requests, so then the rule is that אֵין מְסָרְבִין בְּגָדוֹל – you don't refuse a gadol and immediately, the first request should be accepted.
Now, it may be that a gabbai in a synagogue also has that din because he is the one responsible; he’s asking on behalf of the rabbi or on behalf of the congregation and so it could be that you shouldn't refuse the gabbai either. But whatever it is אֵין מְסָרְבִין בְּגָדוֹל – you don’t refuse the request of a gadol, of someone with authority. That's a rule.
Accept the Mission
So although Moshe Rabbeinu certainly had motives of humility – like he said to Hashem, מִי אָנֹכִי כִּי אֵלֵךְ אֶל פַּרְעֹה, who am I to be the one who leads and goes to Pharaoh on behalf of the people (Shemos 3:11) – nevertheless he should have looked at the One Who was requesting it. If the Gadol shel Olam was urging him, so how many times could he refuse?
It's a big question. After all, politeness requires there should be a limit to humility. If somebody refuses six times when the rav asks him to go to the amud, we would think very poorly of him. And so Moshe certainly should have manipulated his humility, he should have manipulated that middah and agreed to this great mission right away.
Mission Impossible
The answer is that it wasn’t only humility here. Moshe Rabbeinu refused for a sound reason and he said the reason: וְהֵן לֹא יַאֲמִינוּ לִי – They won’t believe me (ibid. 4:1). “You're sending me on an impossible mission,” Moshe said to Hashem. “You know who these people are! They're the toughest people on earth to convince about anything.”
Moshe knew them well. It’s going to be very difficult to persuade them. You're sending me to tell them a story that Hashem appeared to me in the wilderness? A man will come along to them and say Hashem appeared to him and they’ll just accept it? Did Hashem appear to Yosef? No, Hashem never appeared to Yosef Hatzaddik. Did Hashem appear to Reuven? To Shimon? No. It doesn’t say that anywhere in the Torah. After Yaakov Avinu it says nowhere that Hashem spoke to anybody. So you’re going to tell me all of a sudden an unknown man comes out of the wilderness and he says, “Hashem spoke to me.”?
Now had it been Egyptians or the Midyanim so it’s possible. Sure. Among them you’ll find customers everywhere that will believe you. There are plenty of suckers in the world. In America too. Don’t you see when they advertise a lecture and a guru comes, a fifteen year old guru from India, and it’s crowded? People come to listen and they pay admission too. So everywhere there are fools who are influenced by superstitions.
But the Bnei Yisroel? They're not that kind of a people. You can't just pull the wool over the eyes of the Am Yisroel. וְהֵן לֹא יַאֲמִינוּ לִי – They won’t believe me.
A Difficult Nation
By nature the Am Yisroel is a difficult nation. You know some people are always agreeable when you talk to them. They never argue with you; they’re willing to go along with you. But that’s very unusual among original Jews. I say “original” because once the Jews adopt gentile ways you'll also find docile Jews. But among original Jews each man stands on his own feet.
Don't think that the masses of Williamsburg or the masses of our Eastern European Jews of seventy years ago were a docile herd that were driven by their religious leaders. Some people think that’s how it was. No. The rabbanim always had a great deal of difficulty with the people. It's like becoming a teacher not of a kindergarten; it's becoming a teacher, let's say, in a kollel, a kollel of elderly rabbis like you have in Yerushalayim. And whatever you say, you'll give a shiur or propose an idea, so it will be challenged by every one of them. Everyone knows everything already; he heard everything already and so your authority, your proposition, has to be based on proofs. It has to be based on logic.
A Tough Kollel
I was once present in the kollel in Slabodka, the Slabodka kollel. A black beard was a rarity there. A kollel of grey bearded men. They married at the age of forty. They were old yeshivah men who had been through shas again and again, All the yeshivah shiurim they had heard at least seven times already. At least seven times! And therefore let's imagine you're appointed now to rosh yeshivah of this kollel, a kollel of men who are well-founded in their Torah learning and in their way of thinking, and you want to introduce a new idea to them. It’s like pulling teeth.
Now, difficult as it would be to have to give lectures in halachah to such an academy of sages, it was immeasurably more difficult to give instruction to the generation that was going out of Egypt. They were all great men and they were not regimented to just follow instructions.
Jewish Contrariness
Even today Bnei Torah are not regimented like that. It doesn't mean they shouldn't be disciplined but it's not easy because if you'll propose an idea of discipline, of behavior, to a yeshivah man so he'll come up with a better idea of discipline, a different idea. Let’s say you’re starting a new town of yeshivah men and you tell them, “Let's introduce green and red lights at the traffic intersection.”
So one will say, “Why not orange and blue lights?” Another will say, “Why lights? Why not something else?” You'll have a whole argument before you can convince them. Whereas in a gentile town all you need is a city ordinance and it's accepted. You'll give them fines and that's all.
An Enormous Job
And so Moshe knew that to persuade the people of Yisroel to do anything in concerted action is a difficult project. They’re a nation that by their nature is not docile and so a proposal like this, that we’ll all leave Mitzrayim now as one, better be backed up with good svarahs, with cold, hard and unassailable logic.
Even to get ten Jews together for a small project is not easy. Try it; it’s quite a task to unite ten Jews. You’ll say, “Let's come together and daven at this and this address tomorrow morning,” you'll end up the next morning with ten different addresses. And so to get a big nation – they were already very numerous in Egypt – to get them to unite all together on one thing, Moshe Rabbeinu knew that it wouldn’t be just difficult – it would be a miracle.
And so it’s not that Moshe Rabbeinu was reluctant to do a good deed or that he was so humble that he had to be asked seven times. Hakadosh Baruch Hu, if He asks once it's enough. Forget about your humility when Hashem tells you to do something. It was something else altogether – וְהֵן לֹא יַאֲמִינוּ לִי! Moshe Rabbeinu knew that it was an enormous job he was being burdened with; he knew that he was being sent to a nation that was going to be difficult to deal with.
Created in the Beginning
Now, there’s something very important that you have to understand. It’s not just a matter of chance, a random development, that the Bnei Yisroel were a tough bunch. It was a people made to order. That’s what we say in our davening, in Aleinu; three times a day we declare: לְשַׁבֵּחַ לַאֲדוֹן הַכֹּל – It’s incumbent upon us to render our praise to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, לְיוֹצֵר בְּרֵאשִׁית – to the One Who created in the beginning, שֶׁלֹּא עָשָׂנוּ כְּגוֹיֵי הָאֲרָצוֹת – that He did not make us like all the nations of the lands.
We're thanking Him because He made us the chosen nation, a separate nation, but there’s something strange in those words. Because it says that we give thanks לְיוֹצֵר בְּרֵאשִׁית – to the One Who created at the beginning and it seems out of place, those words. Because this prayer, if it would be an expression of gratitude to Him for creating us, if we’re thanking Him as our Creator, then the words לְיוֹצֵר בְּרֵאשִׁית – the One Who created everything in the beginning – make sense. But here, the whole tefillah of Aleinu, we’re not talking about creation at all; we’re thanking Him for electing us as His chosen people and that did not take place at the beginning. At the beginning of the world we weren't yet in existence.
The Tailor Made Nation
And so the answer is as follows: At the beginning of the world, when Hakadosh Baruch Hu made the universe He already had in mind the holy nation. He foresaw that the Am Yisroel would stand up and choose Him and therefore He chose us already then. And what does it mean that He chose us? It means that He made us.
That’s what it means that we are thanking the לְיוֹצֵר בְּרֵאשִׁית – the Creator of everything from the beginning of time, שֶׁלֹּא עָשָׂנוּ כְּגוֹיֵי הָאֲרָצוֹת – that He made us different from the nations of the world. He was preparing a people for a great function and that means He created us with the necessary qualities.
I want you to get that point. He made us in a certain way. “You did not make us like the nations of the world” – it means we were made differently. Included in maaseh Bereishis was the creation of a special nation; a special nation with special qualities.
And that's what Yeshayah Hanavi said in the name of Hashem: עַם זוּ יָצַרְתִּי לִי – This nation I created for Myself (Yeshayah 43:21). It’s a declaration of the greatest importance: Not I chose for Myself – I made them for Me, for My purpose. It means we are custom made. The Am Yisroel is a nation that was made to order and it was made to order by a quality Artisan Who wants to turn out the best product. We were made to be great. We were made to be righteous.
