Yitro: Still Snubbed After All These Years

If I asked you to name the most famous, significant, world-changing person in the Torah (and you can't say 'God,' because I DID ask for a person, remember? Sheesh...), I imagine many of you would say 'Moses.' Maybe not all of you, but Moses would at least make it onto most 

people's Top Five list. What do you think it was like being related to him? Moses is so high up on our pedestal (or mountain) of adoration, it's hard for us to tell, from all the way down here, what he was like as a person, or as a brother, husband, or even as a father. But I think it's crucial that we DO look at him as more than just a great leader or prophet. When we let Moses off the hook too much, we let ourselves off the hook as well. We need to focus on role models who were REAL people, so that we can be authentic and present and caring as well. And when we look at Moses' life as a real person, we learn some fascinating (albeit sometimes troubling) things that are absolutely essential for us to see.

And now that we're ready to focus on Moses, I actually don't want to talk about him at all. You see, this week's Torah portion contains the Ten Commandments, which is a pretty important moment for the Israelites, and for Moses as a leader and God-communicator. 

But at the start of our parashah is another significant, but short, story, which almost always gets forgotten; much like the characters in it. Moses has two sons. Did you know that? Some people MIGHT be familiar with Aaron's four sons, but they have rarely heard of Moses' two boys, Gershom and Eliezer. Perhaps that's because we know almost nothing about them. One was (briefly) introduced to us several weeks ago, but the other, Eliezer, was never even named until this week's Torah portion. And we only hear about them because Moses' father-in-law, Yitro, brings his daughter, Tziporah, and grandsons to see Moses in the desert. Suddenly, we realize that Moses' family missed out on EVERYTHING. They didn't see the plagues in Egypt, they didn't see the start of the Exodus, and perhaps most unfortunate of all, they missed the splitting of the Sea of Reeds.

A colleague and friend of mine, Rabbi Joshua Wohl, wrote a wonderful D'var Torah about how Moses was perhaps shielding his children from the misery of the Exodus. Moses didn't know that this story would end well, and if (God forbid) things turned ugly, at least his family would be 

safe back in Midian. But, says Rabbi Wohl, in the process of protecting his sons, Moses also robbed them of the experience of seeing God's grandeur and glory. If you think about it, the basis of all that it means to be Jewish comes from having been redeemed from slavery by God, with all the miraculousness and might that that entails... and Gershom and Eliezer missed it. Furthermore, we never hear about them again. It's not as if this week's parashah introduces them, and they then become major players in Jewish history. There is only ONE other mention of them in the entire Bible; in a small, inconsequential side note in the First Book of Chronicles, where we're simply told that they became 'regular' Levites, and not High Priests like Aaron's sons.

Perhaps Moses was too busy leading a nation to raise two boys. Perhaps Gershom and Eliezer felt too alienated from what could have been their people, because they had no shared experiences with Israel. All we know, is that we know nothing about them. 

It is an important reminder to us all to be present to our children (I know, I've been on a weird parenting kick in my blog posts these past few weeks, can't imagine why...), and to be mindful of the balance between sheltering our kids and allowing them to see the world for what it is. We shouldn't forget the story of these lesser-known Biblical figures. They too have important lessons to teach us. And like the rest of us, Moses and Tziporah didn't have all the parenting answers. But when we see our leaders for who they are, and acknowledge that they too make mistakes and just try to do their best, it can - and should - be encouraging. When we can be in honest relationship with Moses, even when his own sons could not, then he is truly Moshe Rabeinu; Moses, our teacher.

Photos in this blog post:

1. CC image courtesy of ArtBrom on Wikimedia Commons

2. CC image courtesy of public domain on Wikimedia Commons

3. CC image courtesy of Dr. Lidia Kozenitzky on Wikimedia Commons

4. CC image courtesy of Greg Williams on Wikimedia Commons