Ari Levisohn: Welcome to Into the Verse, where we share new and unexpected insights about the parsha, diving deep into the verses to uncover the Torah’s own commentary on itself. 

Welcome back to Into the Verse. This is Ari Levisohn, and here to join me to start this brand new sefer, the Book of Exodus, is none other than my colleague Evan Weiner.

Evan Weiner: Hi, Ari. Great to be here. 

Ari: We’ve got some exciting stuff to talk about today; start off this new book, but first let's do a quick recap of Parshat Shemot.

We ended off Genesis with Yaakov and all of his children making their way down to Egypt. And Exodus begins recapping that, and then talking about how a new pharaoh rose in Egypt who enslaved all the Israelites. He issued a decree to throw all the male babies into the Nile. 

In the midst of this time, Moshe is born. His mom saves him by placing him in a basket in the Nile where the daughter of Pharaoh finds him and raises him as her own son.

Moshe kills an Egyptian guard who's beating a Hebrew, but Pharaoh finds out, so Moshe is forced to flee to Midian where Moshe ends up starting a family and shepherding his father-in-law's sheep.

One day, he stumbles across the Burning Bush out of which God speaks to him and charges him with his mission to free the Israelites. Moshe reunites with his brother Aaron, Aharon, and together they plead their case before Pharaoh who promptly rejects it and makes everything worse for the Israelites.

Evan: It's an action-packed parsha, and it's exciting to finally get to meet the number one hero of the Israelites, Moshe Rabbeinu.

A Backwards Command

Ari: Right, and Moshe's career as a hero really all starts with the Burning Bush. And, you know, we're so focused on the content of the conversation between God and Moshe at the Burning Bush, right, where God charges him on this mission to go free the Israelites; you know, “Tell Pharaoh, let My people go.”

I think we miss something very strange about the language used to charge Moshe on that mission. Evan, come with me to Exodus chapter 3, verse 10, and let's read these words very carefully.

Evan: Chapter 3, verse 10: וְעַתָּה לְכָה וְאֶשְׁלָחֲךָ אֶל־פַּרְעֹה — Now go, and I'll send you to Pharoah, וְהוֹצֵא אֶת־עַמִּי בְנֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵל מִמִּצְרָיִם — and take out My people, the children of Israel, from Egypt.

Ari: Okay, so the message is pretty straightforward, right? “You're going to go to Pharaoh, tell him to let My people go.” But there's something about the language, the verbs used in the beginning of this verse, that I find kind of strange, maybe a little backwards. Evan, do you know what I'm talking about?

Evan: Yeah, when I was reading it: וְעַתָּה לְכָה — Go, וְאֶשְׁלָחֲךָ אֶל־פַּרְעֹה — and I'll send you to Pharaoh. Like, it would make more sense to say, “Now I will send you, and go to Pharaoh.” Like that's where he's being sent.

Ari: Exactly. “Go,” and then, “I will send you?” It seems to make no sense. 

So, when I stumble across a phrase like this, it seems really strange. It seems like it doesn't make sense. The first thing I like to do is see, well, is this phrase used anywhere else in the Torah?

Evan: What did you find?

Ari: So sure enough, it is used again, but only one other time in the whole Torah. 

Evan: This phrase only appears one other time in the Torah?

Ari: Right. So think, is there anyone else earlier in the Torah where someone sent someone else on a mission?

Evan: There are a bunch of them. You know, Avraham is sent, he's sent לֶךְ־לְךָ, he's sent to take Yitzchak for the Akeidah. Avraham sends his servant Eliezer. I can't think of any time Yitzchak is sent somewhere. Yaakov is sent to his uncle's house. Yosef is sent to check on his brothers. Is that where you have that phrase?

Ari: Yeah, so come with me to Genesis, chapter 37, verse 13. This is after we hear about Yosef's dreams. His brothers hate him, and then his brothers go off to shepherd their sheep in Shechem. And then Yaakov turns to Yosef and says, in verse 13:

Evan: וַיֹּאמֶר יִשְׂרָאֵל אֶל־יוֹסֵף הֲלוֹא אַחֶיךָ רֹעִים בִּשְׁכֶם לְכָה וְאֶשְׁלָחֲךָ אֲלֵיהֶם — Go and I'll send you to them. There's that exact same phrase that we saw with Moshe and the Burning Bush. 

Ari: Yeah, it's the exact same phrase. And Evan, as you pointed out, there are lots of stories in the Torah where people get sent on various missions, or even get sent to particular people. So while the commentaries focus on some grammatical reasons for maybe why in each of these cases the words would seem to be out of order, part of the reason might just be that the Torah is trying to connect these two stories. And so, it creates this, like, unique language to, like, raise this flag and help us realize, hey, maybe these two stories, these two missions that Moshe and Yosef are being sent on, are somehow similar.

Evan: Ari, that very well could be true, but one language parallel doesn't necessarily mean the Torah is raising a flag and saying, “Hey, Ari, look at these two stories next to each other. They're commenting on each other.”

Ari: Of course. So are there any other connections? So one just small connection. If you just read the end of verse 13, as Yosef responds to Yaakov: וַיֹּאמֶר לוֹ הִנֵּנִי — Here I am.

Evan: That's, you know, kind of like the Torah's “I accept this mission” type of language.

Ari: Not that uncommon. It is how Moshe responds to God; in Exodus 3, verse 4, he also responds הִנֵּנִי. But as you pointed out, that word is used a lot when one person calls to another.

Did You Say Please?

So, let's continue a little bit further in the Yosef story and see if there's anything else that reminds us of our parsha here. We just read verse 13, so why don't we take a look at verse 14, right?

Evan: וַיֹּאמֶר לוֹ לֶךְ־נָא רְאֵה אֶת־שְׁלוֹם אַחֶיךָ וְאֶת־שְׁלוֹם הַצֹּאן — Yaakov said to Yosef, “Go please and see how your brothers and how the sheep are doing,” וַהֲשִׁבֵנִי דָּבָר, “and return with the report.” וַיִּשְׁלָחֵהוּ מֵעֵמֶק חֶבְרוֹן  — And he sent them from the valley of Chevron, וַיָּבֹא שְׁכֶמָה — and he went to Shechem.

Ari: So Yosef is supposed to go and see his brothers. But it doesn't just say, “Go see them.” It's not just the command word, like in the previous verse. There's this extra word, נָא, here. Which, in this context, would probably be translated as, “Please go see them,” which is not a surprising word to see here. But those two words, נָא and רְאֵה, does that remind you of anything in this Burning Bush story?

And I'll give you a hint: It's actually not part of the command God gives him, but it's actually in the lead-up, before God actually talks to Moshe.

Evan: Yeah, Moshe kind of sees the bush, and he's kind of bewildered; “What is this amazing sight?” There's this kind of strange phrase there: וַיֹּאמֶר מֹשֶׁה אָסֻרָה־נָּא וְאֶרְאֶה אֶת־הַמַּרְאֶה הַגָּדֹל הַזֶּה — I'm going to turn and see this wondrous sight.

And the word נָּא there, the use of the word נָּא there seems strange because, you know, normally I'm used to understanding the word נָּא means “please.” My mom always taught me to say please and that's what it means, but here it would not make sense to mean “please.” So, the usage of the word at the Burning Bush seems kind of out of place, if you will.

Ari: Yeah, and so it seems to be adding some emphasis here. Maybe, like, “I must go see this thing.” But it's certainly an unusual way to use this word, נָּא. But that word, נָּא and רְאֵה, right, it's the same as you have in the Yosef story.

Evan: I grant you that we've got not only this strange backward language of sending and now we've got the נָּא and the “seeing” together, but this is kind of strange because, like you said, this is before Moshe is actually sent on a mission, whereas the language parallels that we see in the Yosef story are his actual mission. So I'm reserving the right to maintain skepticism here.

Ari: Right. That's a great point, Evan. This isn't part of Moshe's mission; this is the lead-up to Moshe's mission. But let's follow this thread a little bit further, and I think you'll be convinced that there's something going on here between these two stories. 

Things Don’t Always Go As Planned

So, Yosef's on his way to see his brothers, right? To see them. That's his plan. But, of course, things don't go as planned, and before he sees his brothers, they actually see him. In verse 18: וַיִּרְאוּ אֹתוֹ מֵרָחֹק — They see him from afar, and they plot to kill him before he even gets the chance to approach them. וּבְטֶרֶם יִקְרַב אֲלֵיהֶם וַיִּתְנַכְּלוּ אֹתוֹ לַהֲמִיתוֹ — Before he even gets close to them, they plot to kill him.

Well, Moshe's plan was to see the Burning Bush up close, right? But look what the Torah says right after Moshe turns to see the bush in Exodus 3, verse 4: וַיַּרְא יְקוָה כִּי סָר לִרְאוֹת — God sees that Moshe turned to look at it, וַיִּקְרָא אֵלָיו אֱלֹקים מִתּוֹךְ הַסְּנֶה — and God calls to him from within the bush. וַיֹּאמֶר מֹשֶׁה מֹשֶׁה וַיֹּאמֶר הִנֵּנִי — He says, “Moshe, Moshe,” and Moshe responds הִנֵּנִי. And in verse 5: וַיֹּאמֶר אַל־תִּקְרַב הֲלֹם — Don't come close. 

So Moshe's also on his way to see this thing, to see the bush up close. But before Moshe gets close, God sees him, just like the brothers saw Yosef. And God stops him and He says, “No, don't get close.”

Evan: Yeah, Ari, that's really fascinating. Just like Yosef, you know, the one who he's trying to see, the “נָא רְאֵה אֶת,” right? He's trying to see his brothers; they see him first. So, too, with Moshe, you have the same thing, וַיַּרְא יְקוָה כִּי סָר לִרְאוֹת. When Moshe is trying to go see his bush, God sees him first and tells him, “Hey, don't come any closer.”

Ari: So we’ve got the “going to see,” plus the word נָא. We have someone seeing him first; we have the plan gets foiled before he even gets close. And all of this, of course, following this unique language in the whole Torah of לְכָה וְאֶשְׁלָחֲךָ, of that kind of weird, strange, backwards “Go and I will send you.”

Evan: Okay, Ari, you've got me convinced. I think there's something here.

Ari: Great, I'm glad you're on board. And so, Evan, just for a cherry on top, where do both of these stories happen?

Evan: Moshe is shepherding the sheep in the midbar (desert), and let me quickly check where the story of Yosef and his brothers is happening.

Ari: Take a look at verse 22.

Evan: Verse 22. It's in the midbar. Okay. 

Undoing the Sale of Joseph

Evan: All right, Ari. These connections are pretty strong. What do you make of it?

Ari: So there seems to be something about Moshe’s mission connecting to Yosef’s mission here. And of course, what’s the end result of Yosef’s mission here?

Evan: Yosef is sold into slavery in Egypt and then this is eventually leading all the brothers and the Israelites down into Egypt as slaves. 

Ari: Exactly, exactly. And of course, what’s Moshe’s mission here? 

Evan: It’s kind of like the opposite. It’s to take them out of slavery, take them out of Egypt. 

Ari: Yeah. In a sense, Moshe's mission is to undo the damage that happened in Yosef's mission, right? Yosef's mission led first to Yosef’s personal slavery in Egypt, and really in the long run to the national slavery in Egypt, to everyone making their way down there. And Moshe's job is to fix all of the tragic consequences that happened as a result. 

But there's something here that's making me think that it might go even deeper. There might be something else going on.

Evan: Hi, Evan here. Ari thought there was something more going on in these connections. It’s not just the fact that Yosef’s story started the Israelites journey down to Egypt and Moshe’s mission was to bring them out of Egypt. Ari thought that there’s another aspect to Moshe’s mission.

You see, I had raised some skepticism earlier that the parallels Ari was pointing out were in different parts of each story. It was actually before God says לְכָה וְאֶשְׁלָחֲךָ, “Go tell Pharaoh to let My people go,” where we saw these language parallels to Yosef.  And that made Ari wonder if there was something that had to come before Moshe could take the Israelites out of Egypt, and whether that prerequisite was connected to Yosef’s mission.

So Ari wanted to think a little more deeply about what Yosef’s mission was really about and see if it could help us understand what these parallels might be revealing to us about what God wanted Moshe to do. 

A Closer Look at Joseph’s Mission

Ari: And so I guess that leads us to the question of, what was Yosef's mission?

So just for some back story, Yosef's brother's hatred for him was building up worse and worse, and he told them the dreams and that pushes this sinah, this hatred, into kinah, which is jealousy. And it gets to the point where they decide to get up, leave their home, and go shepherd in Shechem.

And I was talking to a friend of ours, David Curwin, about this, and he pointed out Shechem is about 70 miles away from where they were living in Chevron. I have no idea how fast sheep can travel, but that's a multi-day journey at best from Chevron. This was not a stroll in their neighborhood. It seems like the brothers were trying to create some distance, both physical and emotional distance between themselves and Yosef.

And so when Yaakov tells him: לֶךְ־נָא רְאֵה אֶת־שְׁלוֹם אַחֶיךָ וְאֶת־שְׁלוֹם הַצֹּאן — Go check on your brothers and on the sheep…Rabbi Fohrman has talked about this before in one of his Tisha B'Av courses, and Adina and I talked about it in Parshat Vayeshev. What's his mission here? What's he telling Yosef to go do?

Evan: I mean, I think the point is that he's being sent to create peace, shalom, with his brothers and reconnect with them, get some kind of reconciliation and reunification of the family.

Ari: Exactly, it's a unity mission. Although Yosef's mission ends with him being sold as a slave in Egypt, the original plan was to be this peacekeeping mission.

Understanding Moses’ Real Mission

So let's think about that as we come back to Moshe's mission, because the Torah is using that strange language of לְכָה וְאֶשְׁלָחֲךָ, “Go and I'll send you,” and all those other examples we saw, those connections. So what was Moshe's mission, right? Obviously it was to free the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, but if you think about it, Moshe was also estranged from his brothers.

Evan: Moshe was estranged from not just his brother, but his brothers in a larger sense, estranged from the larger family of Bnei Yisrael; even from a young age, being discovered by Bas-Pharaoh, being discovered by the princess, and being raised as an Egyptian prince. He can't get any more strange from his brothers, except for when he has to go into exile and go into the land of Midian. You know, and his mission of going to Pharaoh, you know, obviously he's sent to free the Israelites.

Where my mind is going, from what you're showing me, is that there's another aspect here, too. He's going to reunite with his brothers.

Ari: Exactly, and take a look at what God tells Moshe to do in verse 16: לֵךְ וְאָסַפְתָּ אֶת־זִקְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל — Go gather all the Elders of Israel. Before he goes to Pharaoh, before he brings their case about taking the Jews out, he's supposed to go and gather the Elders of Israel, gather the leaders of all the tribes back together. And actually, before he does that, who is he supposed to see, Evan? Who is he supposed to reunite with?

Evan: With his brother, Aharon; the older brother who very well might be jealous of Moshe getting this leadership position. And I'm seeing the parallels of jealousy between brothers, and in the case of Yosef, that jealousy leads to the journey to Egypt and eventually slavery. And here, we're getting the reverse; the reunification of brothers, the resolution of potential jealousy, and a reunification of the family.

Ari: Right. So before he even goes to Pharaoh, first he has to reunite with his own family, with Aharon, and then bring all of the tribes of Israel, all of the brothers back together. And only then does he go to Pharaoh; only then do we take on, like, the real enemy, which is Pharaoh.

So, Evan, what I think these parallels might be telling us is that while Moshe's main mission is to reverse the tragic outcome of Yosef's mission, right, the fact that everyone ended up as slaves in Egypt, along the way he also needs to finish that mission that Yosef never got to finish — the mission to reconnect with his brothers and unite the family.

And so, in the lead up to this mission, you know, we're reminded of all of these failures, right? Yosef never got close, they saw him before he saw them, and we're reminded of the job that Yosef never got to do. But all that's leading up to God sending Moshe on his mission with that לְכָה וְאֶשְׁלָחֲךָ, and hidden in that is this reminder of Yosef's mission, the one that Yosef never finished. But now, Moshe is going to get the chance to do it before going to Pharaoh.

Is There a Recipe for Unity?

Evan: Ari, what you've shown me here is a new facet to the mission that God charges Moshe with. I mean, it's not just about “Let My people go.” It's about, “Unite My people, bring My people together.” And it's kind of making me think, in a way, when I compare the two stories, Moshe more or less is successful in that. I mean, he does unify the people. Yeah, there's some dissent along the way, but, you know, certainly as they depart they're one nation with one heart, and Yosef isn't even able to start that conversation of reconciliation and unity. And it just makes me think like, what is that recipe to bring about that kind of unity?

Ari: Yeah, you know, it's so striking, like, the difference. And it makes me think a lot about what we've seen in Israel, coming off of one of the worst periods of disunity that certainly I remember in my lifetime, maybe some would argue ever. And it seemed like that there wasn't even anywhere to begin that conversation of how to bring people together.

And then, on October 7th, we were attacked. Overnight, it went from one of the worst periods of disunity to just unprecedented unity and brotherhood. And all of a sudden, everybody felt like one, and we're all working together, and everyone was on the same side. 

And the one thing we all knew instinctively was that we stood no chance against our enemy if we weren't united. And I think it's a lot easier to be united when you're under attack, when you're threatened by some outside energy. It's a lot harder when, you know, you're the children of Yaakov living happily in the land of Canaan and everything's going great. But in Egypt, when they have this external enemy of Pharaoh and they're enslaved, it just happens automatically. And it's exactly what we saw on October 7th, too. It's like, as soon as we're under attack from the outside, we just bond together almost automatically.

Evan: Yeah, I mean, Ari, what you're observing is so true. I mean, throughout history, when we've had these external threats, they've produced a greater sense of unity. I'm reminded of the Gemara in Megillah. It talks about, you know, how Achashveirosh taking off his ring and giving it to Haman did more to unite the Jews with God and their teshuva and with each other than all of the admonishing of the prophets for generations.

But you know, I really wish there was some sort of recipe that didn't involve some sort of external threat. Like, how can we tap into the energy that we get when we feel threatened but not actually have to be threatened?

Ari: Right, right. Yeah, I guess maybe that's, you know, one of the reasons we have holidays like Passover is, we already went through these experiences. It shouldn't be that we need to do them again, that we have to get attacked again, in order to find any kind of unity. But look, like, every year, we're supposed to relive the Exodus; we're supposed to remember being slaves in Egypt, and remember being freed from that. Maybe in doing that, we can tap back into that unifying force and not need to experience anything bad ever again.

Truth is, you know, Rabbi Fohrman has talked about this a number of times, how the Korban Pesach is meant to connect to the sale of Yosef and the unifying force of the Korban Pesach in a lot of ways, and maybe we'll link to that in the description. But I wonder if that's the point, right? We've been through this once; we shouldn't have to go through it again. Maybe those memories are something that we can tap into.

And truth is, we don't have to wait for Passover. There's a commandment to remember the Exodus every single day. We do it in the Shema every day.

And as we're reading the parsha this week, right, we can remember that. We can tap back into that unifying force, and when we do tap into that unifying force, we are unified. Look at all the miracles God performed in the Exodus. And I mean, if you think about the war in Israel, I mean, I've heard so many just unbelievable, literally unbelievable stories of miracles of God protection that have happened to us since that initial attack.

And it kind of feels like, you know, the minute people started hearing about what happened, we all just, like, instantly, in our hearts, united and instantly sprang into action. And I hope through continued unity, we merit many more miracles; miracles as great as we saw in Egypt.

Evan: Amen to that.

Ari: Amen.

Credits

This episode was recorded by: Ari Levisohn together with Evan Weiner.

This episode was produced by Evan Weiner.

Our audio editor is Hillary Guttman.

Our production manager is Adina Blaustein.

Our senior editor is Ari Levisohn. 

Thank you so much for listening, and we’ll see you next week.