Rabbi Freedman’s Shabbat Message

Reading Hillel Halkin’s acclaimed biography of Ze’ev Jabotinsky, I came across a paragraph that set me thinking about leadership in general, and that of Moses, who makes his first appearance in this week’s sidra, in particular. Halkin quotes David Ben-Gurion, who once remarked that Jabotinsky was the only Zionist politician he knew who had not the slightest fear of Gentiles and could never be intimidated by them. Although this was meant as a compliment, the inference was, as Chaim Weitzmann was to put it rather bluntly in his autobiography Trial and Error, that Jabotinsky had something “not at all Jewish” about him.

This may have been because Jabotinsky was raised in Odessa – perhaps the only place in Europe (certainly Eastern Europe) at the time where a Jew could feel both deeply Jewish and totally at ease among non-Jews, because only there did Jews and non-Jews mix in truly neutral spaces. In this way, Jabotinsky was seen to be quite different from the people he set out to lead and influence.

Halkin then made the following comparison between Jabotinsky and two other great leaders of the Jewish people.

Such feelings were also had about Herzl. He, too, was raised more Jewishly than was commonly acknowledged by his Eastern European critics, who misattributed much of what they disliked about him to a total absence of Jewish roots. Nor was it only they who thought his Zionism derived from a born-again sense of Jewish identity that he did not grow up with. Many of his followers also regarded him as a Moses-figure, a Jew raised in Pharaoh’s courts, as it were, with no sense of connection to his fellow Israelites. Part of the fascination of Moses’ story lies in his having adopted the persecuted people of his ancestors when he could have led the privileged life of an Egyptian prince, and a similar legend accrued to Herzl. Unlike the Zionism of the Weitzmanns and Ben-Gurions which aspired to solve, not only the Jewish predicament, but their own predicament as Jews. Herzl’s Zionism seemed disinterested and therefore grander, a selfless act of devotion to his rediscovered brethren with whom he, the acclaimed European journalist and playwright, was under no compulsion to be associated. For his self-sacrifice, Jews felt awe and gratitude; by it their self-esteem was heightened, since his giving up so much to be their saviour could only mean they were worth giving it up for.“ (Jabotinsky, A Life : Hillel Halkin)

Any comparison between Moses, Herzl and Jabotinsky would have to take into account their differences as well as their similarities. For example, Moses’ authority derived from divine command, Herzl’s from visionary persuasion, and Jabotinsky’s from ideological conviction and action, and on reviewing their accomplishments, one would have to say Herzl founded a movement, Jabotinsky forged an ideology, but Moshe shaped a civilization. But what they had in common was deeply significant for all three shared a deep sense of responsibility for the Jewish people and a willingness to sacrifice personally for the collective good; each addressed the central challenge of his generation: liberation from slavery, national revival in exile, and survival in a hostile political environment and perhaps most significantly each came as an outsider to lead and inspire his people.
The emergence of Moshe as the leader of the Israelites is one of the most carefully constructed narratives in the Torah. Far from presenting a charismatic hero who naturally ascends to power, or one who is elected from among the ranks of the Israelite hierarchy, the Torah depicts Moshe as a reluctant, self-effacing, relatively unknown quantity, shaped by a life lived between worlds. This very complexity – his upbringing outside the Israelite slave community, his moral sensitivity, his humility, and his resistance to leadership – marks him as uniquely suited for the role he is ultimately commanded to assume. Through close analysis of Parashat Shemot, it becomes clear that Moshe’s suitability lies precisely in his status as an outsider who internalizes Israel’s suffering while remaining independent of its internal power structures. His leadership exemplifies a central Torah principle: the most effective redeemer is one who stands both within and beyond the people he leads.

The Book of Exodus opens with a leadership vacuum. The Israelites are enslaved, oppressed, and systematically dehumanized (Exodus 1:11–14). Notably, no Israelite leader emerges organically from among the people during this period. Commenting on the extraordinary circumstances of Moses’ birth and upbringing, Ibn Ezra makes the following salient point:

אולי סבב השם זה שיגדל משה בבית המלכות להיות נפשו על מדרגה העליונה בדרך הלימוד והרגילות ולא תהיה שפלה ורגילה להיות בבית עבדים

Perhaps God arranged things so that Moses would grow up in a royal house and his spirit would thereby be exalted through learning and practice. In this way he would not possess a depressed spirit habituated to being in the house of slaves.
(Ibn Ezra on Exodus 2:3)

In this way, Ibn Ezra suggests, prolonged slavery has the effect of eroding initiative and self-confidence, leaving a population incapable of organized resistance. The longer they were enslaved, he suggests, the harder it would be for them to regain any measure of spiritual or political autonomy. Not only had freedom been taken from them, but something even worse – the hope of freedom – for with no one to lead them out of this abyss, they were a lost people. In a further comment, he even suggested that it was due to their interminable suffering that the Israelites found it hard to believe that Moses could help about bring the promised deliverance.

ולא שמעו ולא הטו אזן לדבריו כי קצרה רוחם באורך הגלות
ובעבודה קשה שנתחדשה עליהם
Israel did not hearken or pay attention to the words of Moses, as their spirit was impatient or embittered because of the length of their exile and the hard labour that had been imposed upon them.
(Ibn Ezra on Exodus 6:9)

Against this backdrop, Moshe’s birth is already framed as extraordinary. His mother hides him for three months, and when she can no longer do so, she places him in an ark (תֵּבָה), deliberately echoing Noah’s salvation – compare Exodus 2:3 with Genesis 6:14 – the only two occasions this word is used to describe a vessel in the whole of Tanakh. The point being made is obvious, where Noah saves a world, Moses saves a people. Midrash Shemot Rabbah (1:23) notes that the term תֵּבָה signals not merely survival, but divine intervention. From his first moments, Moshe is positioned as one uniquely preserved for leadership. Crucially, Moshe is raised not within the Israelite slave camps but in Pharaoh’s palace (Exodus 2:10), arguably to provide for him political literacy, education, and exposure to governance – skills unavailable to enslaved Israelites, equipping him to challenge the empire from within its own intellectual and moral frameworks. Although initially the Israelites seemed alienated from his grand mission and unfamiliar background, eventually they became inspired by his leadership and in so doing they followed him into the wilderness, to a life free of slavery and to an unimaginable future.

Like an orchestra conductor who stands outside the orchestra yet helps it create the most compelling and beautiful music, so the greatest leaders often emerge from the margins of society, outside the body politic itself – and then with a unique perspective which eludes others too close to the centre – proceed to lead, often in a most successful way. This theme is echoed in the experiences of Moses in Midian where he was allowed to mature without the pressures of communal expectation. Leadership formed in solitude is more likely to be principled than populist.

Moshe became Israel’s leader not in spite of his outsider status, but because of it. His upbringing in Pharaoh’s palace, his years of isolation, his growing independent spirit – all this and more converged to form a leader uniquely capable of guiding a broken people toward redemption. Moshe therefore stands as the archetype of the leader who belongs everywhere and nowhere, one who has learned to stand apart – so that he may ultimately bring an entire people together.

These ideas may seem familiar to some when one considers the concept that ‘a prophet is not recognised in his own land’: the idea that somehow familiarity breeds a level of disrespect. This is in a sense a Jewish thought, but not from a Jewish source. The early Christians were originally Jewish and their writings, especially in the New Testament reflect Jewish teachings as often as pagan ones. Hence, one can certainly quote the Book of Mark 6:4 where it states, “A prophet is not without honour except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home.”

But in truth, there is no need to look at Christian sources – to offer support for the idea of leadership stemming from beyond the body politic for this notion is absolutely fundamental to Jewish theology – albeit found in a completely different context.

To understand this point one need only go back to Amsterdam in the 17th century. Benedict Spinoza was famously excommunicated from the Portuguese Jewish community in Amsterdam in 1656 for his radical theological views, which included beliefs now associated with pantheism, the heretical belief that identified God within nature (Deus sive Natura) as opposed to the traditional view that God stands above and beyond nature.

Deus sive Natura (Latin for “God or Nature”) is Baruch Spinoza’s famous phrase asserting the identity of God and the natural world, meaning there’s one single substance (God/Nature) that encompasses everything, with all things being temporary expressions (modes) of this infinite, eternal, and impersonal reality, challenging traditional views of a separate, personal creator by seeing divinity immanent in the orderly laws of the universe itself. This concept forms the basis of Spinoza’s pantheism, where the universe’s structure and all its components, including humans, are inherently divine.

Such views are in direct opposition to Jewish theology which declares unequivocally that God is not part of nature. God is Creator, not a force within the created order. This is one of the key distinctions between Judaism and the ancient pagan world. As early as the opening chapter of Genesis this point is made forcefully as it describes the sun, stars, seas, and forces of life are not divine, but created. This culminates in medieval Jewish philosophy, especially Maimonides, who argues that God has no physical attributes, no location, and no change. God is not in the world the way objects are.

This radical transcendence protects divine freedom, morality, and commandment. If God were part of nature, God could not command nature. How then can man draw close to his Creator – in Jewish belief, through the act of prayer. Prayer does not change God’s essence, but it changes the relationship between God and human beings. The Talmud (TB Yevamot 64a) says, “God desires the prayers of the righteous,” not because God lacks knowledge, but because prayer creates encounter. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel famously described prayer as a moment when humans allow God to enter their awareness of the world. He wrote that prayer is not asking God to be present, but becoming present to God.

If this is how God guides the universe, aloof and yet imminent, then it should not surprise us that our greatest leaders – Moses, Herzl and Jabotinsky follow the same model – originating from outside the perimeter fence and yet being able to lead and inspire from their unique vantage point.

The most inspirational rabbi of recent years, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks followed the same trend. He came into his vocation not from years spent in the Yeshiva world but from outside – from the university world of academia in particular the discipline of philosophy. He claims in his books that he had no intention of entering the rabbinate, rather he had anticipated becoming an economist and yet perhaps because he was an outsider, his leadership brought unparalleled inspiration and success.

Though not for one moment comparing myself to any of the aforementioned leaders of our people – I reflect on my own journey which has always placed me as an interloper, even within the communities that I served. In London, while most of the Jewish population stemmed from ‘the Bible Belt’ i.e. north-west London – I came from a relatively distant suburb in south west London where Jews were few in number and opportunities to learn, limited. When I accepted the offer to come to Australia, not only was I the token ‘Pom’ in the community – but I was outnumbered one hundred fold by ex-pat South Africans; and when I finally crossed the Harbour Bridge to help serve at Central – I was not from a Hungarian background with Holocaust surviving parents or grandparents – which also made me quite different from the majority. Perhaps arriving from beyond has in some small measure helped my career – to what extent, I will leave it for others to judge – but I have felt throughout my life as if I have been the perpetual outsider – and maybe in this one regard, I may be compared to Judaism’s first and greatest rabbi, whose story we begin this week, as we begin to read about the life and times of Moshe Rabbeinu.

Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi David Freedman