Dvar Torah on Parshat Shemot

This week, we begin the book of Exodus. The Israelites are in Egypt, where they have been brutally enslaved. Moshe has emerged as a would-be savior, killing an Egyptian taskmaster, but then failing to break up a fight between two Israelites (a sure sign of a real Jewish leader). Because of his having killed the Egyptian, he is forced to flee the country, and takes refuge in the Land of Midian, where he marries, and herds sheep for his father-in-law. While doing so, he is visited by an angel of God, who gets his attention, so that God can then tell Moshe to return to Egypt and finish the job he started - free the Jewish people, take them out of Egypt, give them the Torah, and bring them to the promised land.

The angel appeared to Moshe "in a flame of fire, in the bush. And Moshe saw, and behold, the bush was burning with fire but was not consumed. And Moshe said, I will go, and see this great vision, why is the bush not burning up?" At that point, once he begins to approach the bush, God speaks to him, informing him of the plan to free the Israelites and bring them back Io the Land of Israel.

Nowhere in the Torah is the symbolism, if there is any, of the burning bush elucidated. On a simple level, it would seem that the bush contains no information, and is just a call of some sort to Moshe to pay attention and come over to see what's happening so that God can talk to him, with no intrinsic message or meaning of its own. However, the Italian commentator, Rabbi Ovadiah Sforno (1475-1550), feels that there is a message, a statement from God, which is communicated by the bush's burning but not being consumed. The bush, in his thinking, represents Egypt, and the fire is the punishment, the ten plagues, which God will bring upon the Egyptians in order to free His people. So far so good - Moshe is being shown that the wrath of God, the fire, will come down on the Egyptians, played by the bush, for the sake of the Israelites. Great. But what, however, we might ask the Sforno, is the message of the most salient and fascinating feature of this vision: the fact that the bush is not consumed? After all, a little fire in the desert may be rare, but is not such a big deal, it is not miraculous. It is the bush's not being burnt up which seems to be the main event here, the real message. What is the bush's survival, which is really remarkable,  saying to Moshe, and to us, in the Sforno's understanding?

The Sforno explains that this is the message that God was communicating by not allowing the bush to be consumed: "Even though I saw the oppression of My people in Egypt, as indicated by the presence of the [burning] angel in the bush [Egypt], and even though I will raise My hand against their suffering, as the fire in the bush indicates, in any event, the Egyptians, who are oppressing them, will not be destroyed by all the plagues I will bring upon them, as is taught by the fact that 'the bush was not consumed', for it is certainly not My intent with these plagues which I shall visit upon them to wipe them out, and settle Israel in their place, but, rather, to save Israel from their hand and settle them elsewhere."

Is it not remarkable that the real weight, the thrust, of the prophetic vision - the fact that the burning bush is not consumed - is all about God's concern for the Egyptians - His concern, and assurance, that His response to their inhuman treatment of the Israelites be measured, fair and reasonable? And that the Israelites - that God Himself - will take no unfair advantage of them, but simply demand and receive the freedom which is theirs by right, and not take any vengeance or retribution from the Egyptians? Before the redemption even begins, God takes pains, by showing Moshe the bush burning but not being consumed, to make it clear that the Exodus will not be about despoiling Egypt, or taking vengance on them. It will be about achieving justice and freedom for the Jews, and it will be no more damaging to the Egyptians than it needs to be to achieve that exalted goal.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Shimon Felix