There is something thrilling and exciting in the first revelation of G-d to Moses about which we read in today’s Sidra. It is something which is even more scintillating than the miraculous phenomenon of the burning bush, the סנה בוער באש, which Moses perceived so unexpectedly as he was leading his flock near the desert. And that is the profoundly unique reaction of Moses to this vision which he beheld. One might think that Moses would develop his curiosity about the burning bush, and he would examine it to find out the reason for its unnatural behavior. One might expect that upon hearing the voice of G-d, which, the Rabbis tell us, sounded like the voice of his father Amram, he would be fascinated, and continue to peer at the strange sight; that he would approach it even more closely and carefully inspect this place from whence G-d appeared to him, and, flattered by G-d’s choice of him, strive for even greater visions.Instead, we find that a certain humility overtakes him, a certain self-control, and ויסתר משה פניו כי ירא מהביט אל אלקים. Moses hides his face, for he dares not look further at this vision of G-d. What a wholesome reaction – and yet how unexpected. Moses shows an unlimited reverence for G-d – he will not delve too deeply, for he knows that there is a mystery to G-d, a secret or secrets which Man dares not seek out, and which he cannot even if he should want to. The root of the word לויסתר is סתר – hiddenness, secrecy, mystery. This entire episode is a mysterious one, one which involves סתר and סוד.Our Rabbis tell us that Moses was rewarded for his act of hiding his face and restraining himself from further probing into the mysteries of G-d. בשכר ויסתר משה פניו זכה לקלסתר פנים. Because Moses hid his face, he was rewarded with his radiant face. You will recall that at the climax of his career, קרני הוד, rays of glory emanated from the visage of Moses, a halo centered about him. And this radiance was the result of ויסתר משה פניו. The rays of glory emanat…

My friends, I do not mean to be shocking when I say that I am here to propose a revolution. And I do not intend to be sensational when I say that my purpose today is to kindle the spirit of rebellion in the hearts of each and every one of us. No, not a political revolution and not an economic revolution, but a revolution nonetheless. The revolution I propose is one of forthrightness. Ours is a time when people are fortified with good thoughts, strengthened by good intentions, and inspired by a desire to do good things. Let no prophet of doom tell us that people today are worse than they ever have been, that they are basically and inherently bad. That would not be true. What is true, however, is that we, as Americans and Jews, have lost one faculty, one certain special and rare quality; and that loss has made us not a worse but a weaker people. We once had the ability to express ourselves freely, to be frank in our opinions, and open in our criticisms. We indulged in the healthy American practice of calling a spade a spade. We were not tamed by superficial politeness, and we were not cowed by petty fears. If we thought something wrong we said so in no uncertain terms, and if the conditions were not corrected we expressed our indignation. We were, one might almost say, childish. It is that childish quality of saying what must be said in the most uninhibited way, and even throwing caution to the winds, that we must attempt to recapture in this Revolution of Forthrightness. We must cast away those superficial politenesses and those petty fears. We must say and express the truth as we see it.This is indeed a childish quality. And it is a tragedy that as our people and country have grown into national adulthood we have outgrown this most ennobling, endearing and distinguishing feature of our people. And if I had to give a name to this revolution of frankness and forthrightness, I would not be ashamed to dub it the “Diaper Revolution.” The name is one which has history be…

The birth of Moses, which is described in this morning’s Scriptural Reading, is mentioned by the Rabbis in a most interesting and extraordinary Talmudic passage. They mention (Shir Hashirim Rabba, 1-15) that R. Judah the Prince, known as Rebbe, was yosheiv v’doreish, preaching to his congregation. And as he was so doing, he was faced with a most distressing problem that has presented itself to generations of public speakers, and especially Rabbis and preachers.Nisnamneim ha’tzibbur. His audience began to fall asleep. To this day that is a major problem that is rather difficult to solve. Even the very best speaker always has one or two people in his audience who prefer a cozy nap to challenging oratory, and who find more consolation in dozing than in thinking. It is sometimes fascinating to watch heads nod and eyes grow heavy, even before the speaker has opened his mouth. When, however, the entire congregation starts to doze off, that is a bad situation. And so, moved by the speaker’s instincts, Rebbe bikeish l’oreran, he tried to wake them up.How do you wake up a sleeping congregation? Some speakers merely raise their voices. Trusting in volume more than in quality, they shout their listeners out of sleep. Other, and more modern brands of Rabbis, turn sensational, and they change themes to the Kinsey-review type of talk. Perhaps that will keep them awake. It is a kind of sensationalism that works at times. But a Rebbe, a saint and a scholar, does not rely on such techniques. He relies on other kinds of methods. And so, he said: yaldah isha be’Mitzrayim shishim ribo be’keress achass, one Jewish woman in Egypt gave birth to 600,000 at one time. A rather sensational remark. And it is meticulously recorded by our Rabbis that at least one of his listeners was jolted by this piece of intelligence, and his name was Yishmael ben R. Yose, and he asked Rebbe what he meant by that, and how was it possible. And Rebbe replied, zu Yocheved she’yaldah es Mosheh she’shakul k’neged…

All of us have participated, at one time or another, in cause of social justice whether it is fighting anti-Semitism or fighting discrimination against Negroes, Puerto Ricans, and Mexicans, etc. (1) But few of us, unfortunately, realize that in so doing we are actually continuing a great Jewish tradition. Saving the oppressed from oppressor and the persecuted from taskmaster is a great fundamental of our faith.  As with all else in Judaism, Man must learn from G-d. And G-d is zokeif kfufim (straightens the bent), pokeiach ivrim (gives sight to the blind), shomeir geirim (watches over the foreigners), yassom v’almanah y’oded (sustains the widow and orphan) … He is a someich noflim (raises the fallen), a motzi assirim (one who frees captives).   But this is more than theory. The life of the greatest Prophet who ever lived demonstrates very clearly that this is an essential pattern of Jewish action: Moses (a) saved an Israelite from the Egyptian taskmaster, (b) saved one Jew from another, and (c) saved the daughters of Yitro from the shepherds.Notice that this pattern of social justice is a broad one: it includes situations in which the parties are Jew-Gentile; Jew-Jew; and Gentile-Gentile.Moses does not suddenly become a prophet. He must first prove himself. And he does so in the eyes of G-d and history by first espousing the cause of the underprivileged and the oppressed in his passion for social justice.  Maimonides maintains that the first step in the career of any prophet is that of protecting the underprivileged and the oppressed. A Prophet never is for the established powers against the oppressed, but always the reverse.Well, if we are to follow the ethical ideal of “imitatio dei,” of patterning our ethical character on that of G-d, if we are to act as the sons of Prophets which we are, then we too must at all times and in all situations espouse the cause of social justice. The question then is: how does one go about it? What do you do?Let us turn to the words …

In the 1930s and 1940s, two brilliant thinkers gazed into their crystal balls and came to the same frightening conclusion: freedom was coming to an end. The western tradition of personal liberty was ebbing, and would ultimately disappear. A world-wide dictatorship would take the place of the democracies, and the heritage of freedom would be lost. But almost as remarkable as their agreement on the death of freedom – unless we wake up and do something about it – was their amazing disagreement as to how this dictatorship would be achieved. These two men each wrote a book – each one a classic of our literature – describing two totally opposite means by which this tyranny of the future would come into being. The late George Orwell wrote 1984, in which he set that date as the probable time by which the world will be controlled by vicious men who will have gotten their power by terror and agony. The enslavement of 1984 is achieved by sadistic brutality, by keeping the people of the world in constant fear. Aldous Huxley, however, in his Brave New World, sees the enslavement of the masses coming about not by inflicting pain, but inflicting an equally humiliating pleasure. Orwell’s slaves are beaten into servitude; Huxley’s are lulled into it. Huxley’s tyrants use soft words to disguise the hard facts.While there is no doubt that our modern dictatorships use pain and brutality to keep in power – Germany and Russia never spared the rod – yet it seems as if the ruling circles of the world’s dictatorships today are beginning to practice rule by pleasure instead of by pain. Even our own beloved America, Huxley warns, is beginning to develop the techniques of the Brave New World – the control of people’s minds by painless means. There is the technique of dehumanizing conformity, in which people feel happy to be part of the crowd and are spared the pain of being alone and the discomfiture of differentness. Our society and its progressive immorality is approaching the prediction of…

This is the season when leadership – its prerequisites and problems, its promises and prospects – appears uppermost in the minds of the public. In less than two weeks our country will inaugurate a new president who made the issue of leadership paramount in his campaign, and promised to move the nation onward to new frontiers. This is an era in human history when, because of the complexity of civilization, leadership is all the more a precious commodity. At a time when Russia is led by clever brutality, when Cuba is led by clever hysteria, when some of the world’s great democracies are led by an unclever sincerity; at a time when wrong leadership can doom the human race to sudden extinction – it is important that we seek in the sacred Torah for insight on the phenomenon of leadership.Allow me therefore to draw largely upon the comments of the Malbim on a significant passage in this morning’s Sidra. In the fourth chapter of our portion, we find Moses receiving the divine charge to lead his people Israel out of Egypt. At this point we read the following intriguing dialogues: Va-yomer elav ha-Shem: Mazeh be’hadekha? Va-yomer: mateh. “And the Lord said unto him, what is that in thy hand? And he said – a staff.”Our rabbis were puzzled by this exchange. Did not G-d Almighty know what Moses had in his hand? Must the Creator of the universe ask a mere mortal for a bit of information? Of course not, explains the Malbim. For he continues, there are three words in Hebrew for a stick. One is makel – a rod, used to whip sheep or strike cattle. The second mishennet – a cane, used to lean upon for support. The third is mateh – a staff, a symbol of authority, like the scepter of a king. These three – the makel, the mishennet, and the mateh – represent three kinds of leadership. The makel, or rod, is the symbol of the power-hungry authoritarian, tyrannical leader who drives his people mercilessly. The mishennet, or cane, represents a self-seeking, conniving parasite who wishes to le…

After Moses is persuaded by the Almighty to undertake the historic mission of leading the Children of Israel out of Egypt, he is commanded v’et ha-mateh ha-zeh tikah be’yadekha asher taaseh bo et ha-otot, “and thou shalt take in they hand this rod wherewith thou shalt do the miracles.” Moses then proceeds to take leave of his father-in-law and leave Midian for the perilous and fateful journey to Egypt. In obedience to the divine command, we read, va-yikah Mosheh et mateh ha-Elohim be’yado, “and Moses took the rod of God in his hand.” At that moment, G-d turns to Moses and says, when you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharoah all the miracles asher samti be’yadekha, “which I have put in thy hand.”Why, asks Abarbanel, the famed Spanish-Jewish commentator, does God not mention the rod, the mateh, as the agent with which the miracles are to be effected? Had he not commanded Moses to take the rod with him? It seems as if God is purposely avoiding mention of the rod. Why so?Abarbanel himself provides an answer which is, in its psychological insight, of timeless significance. Moses, he tells us, had a natural fear of returning to Egypt. He was regarded by Pharoah as a wanted man, a traitor and public enemy. His fellow Israelites thought none too kindly of him. His father-in law Jethro no doubt reminded him of the fact that so far, every time he visited Egypt he jeopardized his life and that of his family. So that Moses was delighted when God commanded him to take along the mateh Elohim, the rod of God. This rod became for him the assurance of his own safety, the guarantee of his security, as he embarked on this highly dangerous enterprise. And so Moses took along the rod, and held it tight in his hand, feeling with every fibre of his being that herein lay the safety of himself, his family, and his mission. At that moment God intervened. Moses, he told him, the rod is only a tool, an implement. In itself it is of no special value. Re’eh kol ha-moftim asher samti …

In Yiddish, the word for “man” – Mensch – represents more than a biological species, the homo sapiens. A Mensch is also one who has a mature personality, a fully developed character, a sense of finesse and savoir-faire, one who is courteous, well-mannered, and amply endowed with the qualities of patience and self-restraint. One of the greatest compliments we can pay a person is to say of him that “he is a Mensch”; conversely, to say “he is not a Mensch” is an indictment of him.Interestingly, the Hebrew word for man, ish, implies the same shade of meaning. Thus, when David on his death-bed gives Solomon his last instructions, and tells him ve’ḥazakta ve’hayita le’ish, be strong and be an ish, he does not mean “be a man” in the usual sense, but rather: be a Mensch!Our Rabbis evidently rated Menschlichkeit very high in the list of virtues. Thus they taught in the Ethics of the Fathers (2:6) that ein boor yerei ḥet, an empty-headed person cannot be sin-fearing; an am ha-aretz or ignoramus cannot be a ḥasid or pious man; the shy person cannot become a lamed or student; the quick-tempered cannot be melamed or teacher. There is here an ascending scale of values: from yerei ḥet, or sin-fearing individual, to ḥasid. the pious one, to the student, to the teacher. The last, and thus the highest of all, is given as: be’makom she-ein anashim hishtadel liheyot ish – where there are no Menschen, you try to be an ish or Mensch. Menschlichkeit, therefore, is higher than sin-fearing, piety, studying, or even teaching Torah!What is a Mensch? A single comprehensive definition is too difficult and too elusive. Let us, rather, list some of the ingredients of Menschlichkeit and analyze some of the problems that are, in fact, crucial to the philosophy and religious outlook of the modern Jew.First, a Mensch is one who does not shrink from a difficult task which his conscience requires of him. He does not invent little excuses for his moral laziness, When Moses, as today’s Sidra reports, sa…

An Orthodox Rabbi has more important things to discuss with his people from his pulpit than the latest fads and fashions in contemporary apikorsut. But when such movements are sponsored by theologians, and are widely discussed in the daily press and in weekly news magazines, it is important to comment upon them and offer whatever guidance may be forthcoming from the sacred sources of the Jewish tradition.A number of Christian theologians, climaxing a development that has been about a quarter of a century in the making in their circles, have put forth their ideas in a manner as shocking as it is honest, and as scandalous as it is forthright. Instead of clothing their atheism in artificial, long-winded, technical terminology, they have accepted the slogan first coined by a German philosopher of the last century: “God is dead.”The words sound too blasphemous to repeat; the lips hurt and the tongue aches when such words are recited. Yet that is just why they make such good copy for the pseudo-sophisticated weeklies, and tempt young professors of theology to break out of the stifling atmosphere of the ivory tower and into a breath-taking sensationalism. For that is just what this is – sensationalism. These theologians have made so much noise with their smart slogan, that nowadays one expects to look for news of theology not in the Religion section, but in the Obituary columns.Their criticism of the “old fashioned religion” – especially if we seek to apply it to Judaism – is a crude caricature, almost vulgar in its insinuations. They have set up a straw man and now knock it down. No intelligent Jew ever thought of God as a man with a white long beard who lives in a castle beyond the sun. No half sophisticated human being who believed in God ever imagined Him as orbiting the globe in a spaceship. Any imputation of such primitive concepts to religious folk of ages past, is merely a species of intellectual dishonesty.What do these theologians mean with their intemperate slo…

In terms of goals it had set for itself, the recent World Conference of Orthodox Ashkenazi and Sephardi Synagogues was undoubtedly a success. It must be stressed that this Conference was neither – as the American press implied – an assembly called for the purpose of excoriating and vilifying Conservative and Reform Jews, nor was it – as the extreme right wing had accused us – a nefarious gathering of subversive modern Orthodox to plan for fraternization with and invite the infiltration of the same Conservative and Reform elements. It was, rather, the first opportunity of our times for Orthodox leadership of countries throughout the world to meet with each other, take measure of each other, counsel with each other, share problems and solutions, and encourage one another. In this respect, the Conference achieved its goals eminently well.What emerged from these deliberations were two centers of concern, which we might designate by two Hebrew words which have one common origin: aliyah and hitalut, both of which come from the Hebrew root, aloh, which means: to go up. By this we mean, that the dual concerns of the Conference were Aliyah, the problem of literally emigrating to Israel from all over the world, and hitalut, the act of self-improvement, self-transcendence, self-elevation in Jewishness and in loyalty to Torah.It is interesting that both these concepts, of Aliyah and hitalut, are discovered by one commentator, Abarbanel, in one word of today’s Sidra. When the Pharaohs of Egypt became anxious about the growth of the Jewish community and its prosperity, they decided to scheme against the Israelites for fear that they were growing too strong, and because of the suspicion that in case of war they would join the enemy and v’alah min ha-aretz, which literally means: “And he will go up from the land.” Normally, this is taken to mean that the Pharaohs feared that in case of crisis the Jews would leave Egypt and go on Aliyah to the Land of Israel, much in the same way t…