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Tetzaveh
Exodus 27:20-30:10
This week’s Torah portion, Tetzaveh, is the only Torah portion, from the beginning of Exodus through the end of Deuteronomy, from which Moses is completely absent. Everywhere else in Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus and Deuteronomy, the great prophet dominates the text. So it is very strange, and highly unusual, that Israel’s quintessential leader is absent from this week’s story.
Why is Moses missing from the narrative?
Rabbis and Biblical commentators throughout the centuries have offered a wide range of interpretations as to why a figure as central as Moses is completely absent from this Torah portion.
One view is that the omission is meant to acknowledge the anniversary of Moses’s death, which is said to have been on the seventh day of the Hebrew month of Adar, one week before Purim, which is coming up, this year, on March 2. This parashah is usually read just before the joyous spring holiday, which reinforces the chronology and the gravity of this time period. There is a hole in our annual celebration.
Another perspective is that Moses’ name is left out of this week’s parashah as a kind of Divine rebuke for his jealousy (according to some traditions) over his brother Aaron’s appointment as the high priest of the Israelite people. The ordination and consecration of Aaron and his sons as kohanim, priests, serve as the major feature in the rest of the Torah portion.
Still other commentators — in an interpretation that essentially opposes the one above — think that Moses, a Biblical character often known for his humility and self-effacement, constrains his personal ego and instead graciously cedes the role of high priest to his brother. In this way, Moses absents himself from the narrative and does not appear in the parashah.
While there is a difference of opinion as to the reaction of Moses when he learns that Aaron is to become the high priest rather than him, the story suggests that, although his name is not explicitly mentioned, Moses remains God’s messenger, the agent for all that is to happen.
This is made evident through an unusual grammatical formulation found several times in the Torah portion, as observed by the 16th-century commentator Rabbi Moshe Alshich.
The very first verse of the parashah says to Moses that “You, yourself, shall command the children of Israel.” (Exodus 27:20) A few verses later, it says “And you, bring near to yourself your brother Aaron, with his sons, from among the Israelites, to serve Me as priests.” (Exodus 28:1) And then, immediately afterward, the text says “You, yourself, speak to all who are skillful, whom I have endowed with the gift of skill, to make Aaron’s vestments.” (Exodus 28:3)
The rabbi suggests that this repeated double emphasis is, perhaps, meant to tell us that Moses is not absent from this story after all. Rather, the prophet’s presence is only momentarily diminished so that other leaders can step forward to serve the spiritual needs of the people.
These interpretations are all very interesting, but to me, the most intriguing and notable example of the absence of Moses occurs in the Passover Haggadah. When Jews around the world sit down at the seder table and recite the words of the Haggadah, as they have for many ages, Moses is barely mentioned — even though he is the central character in the Exodus narrative.
Why is Moses missing from the Passover story in such a seemingly deliberate way? One explanation, which I find particularly compelling, is that when the rabbinic sages composed the Haggadah and developed the seder, they strived to downplay Moses’ role in the liberation and future redemption of the Jewish people so as not to create a cult of personality.
If excessive focus on Moses’ power and greatness were to lead to his becoming a venerated and, over the millennia, possibly even deified being in the Jewish tradition, then Jews would risk crossing a theological line and descending into avodah zarah, idol worship, one of the most grievous sins in Judaism.
In conventional Jewish thought, however, Moses is not viewed as a demi-god nor a messiah nor a magician who works wonders through his own Divine capabilities. He is treated as a mortal man, a human being, born in the image of God but also flawed and imperfect like all the rest of us.
The glory of the Exodus belongs to God, not Moses.
This anti-idol idea, embedded deeply in the Jewish religion, may not be unique among the world’s many faith traditions and belief systems, but it is without doubt one of the most longstanding and defining aspects of Jewish theology, mythology and ritual. It is also an idea about which I, as a rabbi and a student of different religions, am most proud.
No human being can transcend his or her own mortality. None of us is above the values, rules and laws that serve as the moral bedrock of our society.
In today’s troubling era of autocrats and strong men who lead countries around the world, whose gargantuan egos and circles of sycophants make them see themselves as messiahs and demi-gods unbound by the constraints and limitations of others, this is a timely and critically important teaching to remember. And it traces its origin all the way back to the Torah.