Exodus 1:1-6:1

 

A Serious Question

In this week’s reading, God calls to Moses from a burning bush and tells him that he is to go back to Egypt and lead the Israelites to freedom. To this Moses responds, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and free the Israelites from Egypt?”

On the face of things, this is an unexpected question. Who are you? Moses, you are the ideal candidate! You grew up in the royal court, Egyptian is your native language, you know the ins and outs of the palace, the Egyptians respect you more than any other candidate imaginable—what do you mean, “Who am I?”

But from Moses’ point of view, this question is altogether relevant. At this moment, he faces a choice. He can ignore this summons and remain in his comfortable surroundings together with his wife and family, or he can listen to a voice coming out of a burning bush, drop everything, and undertake what seems on the face of it a difficult and quite possibly dangerous mission. So indeed, like some people at a certain point in their lives, Moses must now peer into himself and ask a serious question: “Who am I?” Is this what I should do, and what will conceivably occupy me for the rest of my life?”

Perhaps it’s no accident that, a few moments later, Moses—stalling for time, it seems—tells God he can’t possibly agree to do what God has just proposed since he doesn’t even know God’s name. Philosophers and theologians have made much of God’s answer, “I am who I am,” but the truth is that this phrase simply means, “Mind your own business, Moses.” (Jacob gets the same answer in Gen 32:30, and Manoah in Jud 13:18). But then God—quoting Himself, as it were—tells Moses, “This is what you must tell the Israelites: ‘I am’ has sent me to you.” An apparently ungrammatical and altogether gratuitous answer, unless it is intended to evoke Moses’ earlier question, “Who am I?” and answer it with an unexpected response: “‘I am’ has sent me to you.”

Shabbat shalom!