MOSES MOMENTS

January 31, 2003

Rabbi Edward Paul Cohn
Temple Sinai
New Orleans, Louisiana

Well, my name is Moses and I'm here this Shabbat to congratulate these five brilliant students who have made us all so proud! Actually, I make a guest appearance each Shabbat at some synagogue all over the world. Tonight was New Orleans' turn. I looked in the Yellow Pages, and Sinai seemed to be just the place I knew I'd be at home.

My name, Moses, comes from two Egyptian words mean "son" and "drawn out," because I was drawn out of the Nile in a basket and raised as a son by the Egyptian princess.

You know how we came to Egypt in the first place, don't you? In gratitude to Joseph, the Pharaoh invited all the Canaanite Hebrews down there during that terrible famine. Four hundred years later, a fellow became pharaoh who had forgotten all about how Joseph saved Egypt.

Little by little, things got bad for my people. They became slaves. The more we grew in number, the worse things got until Pharaoh ordered every newborn Hebrew to be thrown in the Nile.

My mother hid me for three months, but that couldn't last. So she rigged up the waterproof basket and made sure I wound up in the hands of the Egyptian princess during her bath time. I was a cute little fellow, and the princess couldn't do anything but take me home.

Just then (as Mom carefully planned it), my sister Miriam happened by and she told the princess of a woman who could nurse the baby-my own mother. So I had a good life growing up in the palace with an Ivy League education (1180s in my SATs), captain of the swim team, and an excellent charioteer.

As a man of 40, I was out jogging when I saw an Egyptian taskmaster beating up on a Hebrew slave. I can't explain it, I guess God had a plan, but my temper flared and I killed the cruel slavedriver. I tried to hide what I had done, but the news got out-and so did I-out of Egypt.

I read in the Mideast Classifieds how they were looking for shepherds in Midian. That's where I headed and proceeded to help some beautiful young women draw water for their flocks. Their old man, Jethro, was some kind of holy man, and he accorded me a gracious welcome. A fellow can get comfortable in the sheep track, and I married one of Jethro's daughters. Plus, we had two sons. Life was good in Midian. Time passed and I had no idea what God had in store for me.

Then, it happened. One day I was out with the sheep and I saw this bush-raging with fire, but it didn't burn up. Darndest thing you ever seen. It was so cool. So I went over to it, you know, to get a good look and that's when God called me to go on back to Egypt, to get my kinfolk out of their dreadful slavery.

I had a million excuses why that was a really bad idea.

Why me?

I already have a job.

I'm kinda shy.

I'm a rotten speech maker.

I'm not persuasive.

God wouldn't take "No" for an answer, and that's when Aaron and I teamed up. God was getting impatient and just ordered me:

You pack your bags and get back there.

I'll tell you what to do and when to do it.

I tell you, it's incredible what God can accomplish with people who are willing to do what needs to be done!

God uses ordinary people and promises to be with them. All we need to do is forget ourselves and rely on God.

Well, you've probably heard how Aaron and I got nowhere at first with Pharaoh. He only made our people work longer and harder, so they'd have no time to think about being free.

We had some neat props and tricks to impress Pharaoh, maybe not like 007, but pretty close:

The rod turned into a snake.

Pharaoh's magicians could do that one, too, but ours ate theirs! (That was really neat!). The big stuff was yet to come, of course!

One miserable and fearsome plague after the other. They afflicted the Egyptians but never the Hebrew slaves. From flies to frogs, locusts to grasshoppers, hail and boils, bloody water and the darkest of nights. Pharaoh promised to free us and then broke his promise-over and over.

There was but one thing more to do: death of the first born-terrible, but necessary! Oy! Our bags were packed. We didn't even let the bread rise. You probably don't know this, but I had an entirely different plan for the big night of our stepping out: buttery croissants! But God said, "No, keep it simple." So you've been crunching on that matzah and sweeping up those crumbs from the carpet for 3,500 years!

In many ways, that was just the beginning of my trouble. There was the miracle of the sea. Actually, can you keep a secret? We tiptoed across and knew where the rocks were. God raised the tide on the Egyptians. It wasn't a pleasant sight!

Thus began 40 years of k'vetching and whining. Imagine 600,000 people asking at every turn of the sand,

"Are we almost there?"

"I'm hungry. Can't we stop for a burger?"

"What, there's no Stuckeys?"

"I'm tired of manna-we had it yesterday."

And, don't even mention that Golden Calf incident. I've shlepped these stone tablets through the ages, wondering

Do they ever read them, and if so, why don't they try to keep them?

Well, time passed. One day, I hadn't slept well the night before, and the enemy cut off our water supply. The people fussed and complained so much, I guess I really lost it. I struck a rock with my staff instead of asking for water. God brought the water, but that was it for me. One public act of disobedience and. . . . You figure it! That was it for me. No Promised Land.

We were little more than a wild bunch of nomads in that wilderness. Everybody complained. Sometimes the people (get this), sometimes they even cursed me for bringing them out of Egypt. They wanted freedom, but didn't yet know how to handle it.

If only you'd all read those Commandments. The first four tell you how to revere God. The last six tell you how to respect one another. They'll help you know how to make the best moral decision in every situation.

Well, in the end I got my affairs in order. Organized a new generation of our people, entrusted the leadership to Joshua-he was a good boy! And--like it or not-I said my farewell to my people as they went ahead to cross the Jordan.

So much has happened since then-much of it good and wonderful, some of it horrible and sad beyond words. But, our story isn't anywhere even close to being finished. We Jews are God's Chosen People, and we have a job to do-a covenant of love and peace, justice and hope, to continue teaching.

Gotta run now. Wish I could stay for the Oneg. But, at my age, one has to watch his weight! Shabbat Shalom!

Amen.