Third Reading: Why Did Moses Run Away?
“...Moses fled from Pharaoh’s presence...”
Learning from Moses about Nullification with Confidence
We might ask: Moses is a leader, he is the king of Israel, and a king cannot be a coward—not even a holy coward. A king must perform all tasks, pass all challenges, and we see that in the end of his days – at the age of 120 – Moses rose and fought like a young man, until his last day, against Sichon king of the Amorites and Og king of Bashan. In the war against Midian, he sent soldiers to fight, to avenge God’s vengeance against Midian (even though he knew that after this mission was complete, his life would end). We see that Moses is very strong, not someone who is nothing. And yet, we tend to associate a person who is completely nullified before God tends to not have any self and therefore cannot exhibit confidence and fulfill the role of a king.
So how does Moses succeed at doing both? The same question applies to all of us, each in our own way. On the one hand, a person needs to exercise self-nullification before God, but in those areas in which he holds leadership roles, he must act with confidence. This could be your family, if you are a parent; it could be a classroom, if you are a teacher, etc. In these contexts, you cannot be nullified. This is not the way to bring Mashiach. When it comes to the redemption, and we all are part of the effort to bring it, the Lubavitcher Rebbe said, “Do all that is within your power!” This requires confidence.
“Moses”—Being Residing within Nullification
The answer to our question is that one’s confidence represents one’s sense of being, while one’s nullification represents one’s non-being, one’s ayin. These two have to paradoxically exist together. We see this in Moses’ name, הֶׁשֹמ. The “frame” is the letters mem and hei, which together spell the word “nothing” (הָמ), as in the verse, “And we are nothing, why should you complain about us” (ּינוּלּי תִה כָּ מּנוְחַנְוּינוֵלָע). Inside the frame is the letter shin (ש), which represents Moses’ confidence in God that he can fulfill his mission.
What does the letter shin represent? In Sefer Yetzirah (the Book of Formation), shin stands for fire (ׁשֵא), but it is also stands for “being” (ׁשֵי). On the one hand, Moses is nothingness (הָמ), he is entirely nullified. But on the inside, he is fire, he is substance (ׁשֵי); his essence reflects holy being, the true substance of God in man. It is this fire that burns within him that gives him the power to lead the people of Israel. There is a saying that every chasid needs to be internally, in the heart, a flaming fire (even though externally he acts with self-nullification). These are Moses’ two dimensions.
Extremely Great (Before the Egyptians) and Extremely Humble (Before His Brothers)
Moses’ two dimensions are emphasized by the fact that the sages say that Moses is commonly referred to as “the man” in the Torah. There are two verses that stand out. One verse appears before the Exodus from Egypt, when Moses is already leading the people and inflicting the Ten Plagues on Egypt. These actions clearly originate from the holy essence that resides in Moses, not from his self-nullification. This verse reads, “and the man Moses was extremely great in the Land of Egypt, in the eyes of Pharaoh’s servants, and in the eyes of the people.”
Much later, we find the more well-known verse, “and the man Moses was extremely humble, more than any man upon the face of the earth.”
