Learning to Recognize the Burning Bush

Learning to Recognize the Burning Bush
D’var Torah for Parashat Shemot
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
January 13, 2012

If the overarching lesson of Genesis is accepting responsibility for one another, Exodus is about accepting responsibility for a whole people. The relationships in the first book are mostly one-on-one. Noah, of course, is a large exception to this rule, as he is given the larger challenge of saving the remnants of all life. But within this framework, Noah fails a large part of the test: he does not plead the cause of all life before God the Creator. It remains for the second book of the Chumash—the Five Books of Moses, the Torah—for this challenge to be faced once again, this time culminating in a huge success.

Exodus, as much as it is about God’s intervention in world history, is also the story of an individual, Moses. This week’s Torah portion (Shemot, Ex. 1:1 – 6:1) takes us from Moses’ birth to his encounter with God at the Burning Bush. We learn of his humble origins as the child of a persecuted tribe of slaves; we learn of his mother’s and sister’s desperate attempt to save him from the rampaging henchmen of Pharaoh out to kill Israelite male infants. We read of his rescue at the edge of the River Nile by none but a daughter of Pharaoh.

Nurtured by his birthmother, raised by his Egyptian stepmother, Moses can choose between the two ways of life open to him—slave or Egyptian prince. But the one value that he has learned from both his mothers, compassion, leads him more and more to reach for his own brethren, to witness their heavy suffering at the hands of their Egyptian overlords.

One day Moses sees an Egyptian mercilessly beating an Israelite. Giving in to frustration and rage, Moses kills the Egyptian.

But to every action, even those of heroes, there are consequences, and Moses soon finds himself on the run. He flees to the Sinai Wilderness, where he meets upon the Midianites and binds his life with theirs. Once again, a life of peace—and ignorance—can be his for the asking. However, while shepherding his father-in-law’s sheep one day, Moses encounters the Burning Bush. It is, of course, symbolic of God’s presence, and there God calls upon Moses to accept a position of national responsibility.

“Go stand up to Pharaoh and free the Israelites from their slavery,” God basically says.

Now Abraham would have no problem with this command. He’d pack up his belongings and early the next morning would set out for Egypt. Not so Moses, however. He is afraid of his own impulses; he is keenly aware of a speech impediment he has that makes verbal communication difficult for him. Moses argues with God: “Why me? Is there no one more suitable for the job?”

With each attempt to resist the call, God comes up with more reassurances. I will be with you; there will be miracles, all sorts of signs and wonders; your brother, Aaron, will speak for you. But finally even God has had enough. Impatiently, God says to Moses, “Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind? Have not I, Adonai? Now therefore, go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say” (Ex. 4:11-12).

Where so many would have taken advantage of such a call to initiate a power grab, Moses tries to shirk responsibility. He blames his weaknesses. And the lesson that he learns is that that is precisely where each of us must start. The weaknesses that drag us down may ultimately be our undoing. However, overcoming them at every opportunity is how we achieve true greatness.


Detractors of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., have always enjoyed pointing to his flaws. From his name, to his writings, to the speeches he gave, even to his personal life—every aspect of his identity and personality has been attacked. There may actually be some truth to some of the accusations, for, after all, no human being is unflawed. If Martin Luther King had been perfect, he would be an object of faith and religious adoration today. But instead, the reasons why Rev. King’s memory is celebrated are not personal. His greatness is not in his personal habits, but rather in the words he spoke and the message he so eloquently delivered.

Spoken with profound belief and faith, the message of Dr. King’s speeches is God’s own word, the message of Redemption. It was first spoken to Moses from the Burning Bush—a bush that burned but was not consumed, that existed thousands of years ago and still does today, symbol of God’s eternal moral lesson.

As first described by the book of Exodus, the Israelites were a people who “swarmed” in the land like insects and just so much vermin. To redeem them would mean not only to unshackle them from bondage. Redemption means restoring value. God may have created the mouth, the eyes and the ears; but along with their imperfections, God also teaches us how to use these very organs so as to rise from the earth, to become more than just dust particles, to become partners with the very Creator who made us.

Redemption is about finding meaning in life, about learning to respect both oneself and others. In the book of Genesis, Judah exemplified this by accepting responsibility for his brothers. Joseph joined Judah in this sacred task. In Exodus, it is the unassuming Moses who—along with his brother Aaron and sister Miriam—will be working together to bring freedom and value to the life of all their people, all Israel.

In our own day, it took a visionary—the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.—and a whole nation to overcome the prejudice and contempt that kept African Americans a downtrodden people. It is an unfinished task. In many cases they are still considered second-class citizens at best.

And then, there’s the rest of Humanity. Like Creation—left unfinished by God—the redemption of all Humanity, in all its colors, races, gender identification, beliefs and choices, is not yet complete. Yet, each of us can gaze at the bush that still burns out there, that still voices the hope and the promise, that still issues the challenge. We will then learn not to point to one another’s faults, or even to our own, but rather to the possibility and potential that each of us represents, to the Divine Image that burns unconsumed within each one of us human beings.


©2012 by Boaz D. Heilman