Va'etchanan

The Faithful Shepherd was Moshe rabbenu (Moses our Rabbi).  In fact, the mystic tradition always refers to Moshe this way, as the “ faithful shepherd.”  He was the shepherd who kept faith throughout all his trials in Egypt and in the forty-year sojourn in the desert.  

Leadership was thrust upon him.  Unlike a political leader who runs for office for personal aggrandizement or for altruistic reasons wanting to change the world for the better Moshe tried hard to evade the call of leadership.  Humility was Moshe’s hallmark and he argued with God against become the man who would confront the mighty Pharaoh to deliver his people.  

Why Moshe?  Why did not God choose someone more ambitious, perhaps a bit more assertive and aggressive with a drive to fight against tyranny?

The midrash tells us that when he was a young man tending the flocks of his father-in-law in Midian, he found that the tiniest of ewes was missing from the flock.  He searched everywhere to find the missing lamb, when he could have simply reported to his father-in-law “One of them wandered off today and was lost.”  But to Moshe rabbenu even such an insignificant life was worth pursuing at any cost.

It was then that God cast Moshe in the role of the liberator.

Everyone matters, even the people with whom we disagree or whom we find objectionable.  The Faithful Shepherd is the image that we remember and emulate.  We must all try to be more like Moshe, valuing each life as precious and irreplaceable, eschewing honor and defending the weak.


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“And make them known to your children and your grandchildren” (Deuteronomy 4:9)

Moses is telling the Israelites in this verse to make known to their children and grandchildren the events of the Exodus and the revelation at Mount Sinai, together with its laws, so that they will “revere God as long as they live on the earth” (4:10). The Talmud (B. Kiddushin 30a), however, uses it to claim that it is not only parents, but also grandparents who have the duty to teach the Jewish tradition to their descendants.

 

The Talmud (B. Berakhot 21b) therefore also says, “When a child is taught Torah by a grandparent, it is if that child received it from Sinai.”

 

 

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