Adapted by Channie Koplowitz Stein
We all know who Moshe Rabbenu Rabbenu is. Yet, were someone to refer to him by any of his other names (Our sages note he actually had seven names), we would not recognize it as the name of our greatest leader. Why does the Torah itself use only the name Moshe, and what is the significance of that name?
Moshe was the name Pharaoh's daughter gave the baby she pulled from the Nile and raised as her own. She gave him this name because she says, "Mishisihu/I drew him out of the water." Our simplest question is how did an Egyptian princess know Hebrew, if this name is indeed derived from the Hebrew of "to draw forth?" The Egyptian word would be monikas, yet his name is not Egyptian. Perhaps she learned Hebrew from the Hebrew slaves, or perhaps she asked the Hebrew nursemaid, suggests Rabbi Kofman in Mishchat Shemen. Or perhaps, as Oznaim Latorah suggests, Moshe in Egyptian means boy/son of the king.
More important than these speculations is what Ner Uziel and so many of our Sages teach, that the essence of a person[or even of an object] is contained in its name. There is power in that name.
When Hashem created Man, the angels could see no value in this creation. Then, according to the medrash cited by Rabbi Reiss in Meirosh Tzurim, Hashem asked the angels to name the animals. When they could not, Hashem brought the animals to Adam who named each animal according to its essence. That was Hashem's response to the angels. Man has this ability to discern and to name accordingly. Similarly, a person's essence and mission is encapsulated in his name. As the Seforno says, "These are the names of Bnei Yisroel...,"each was worthy to be called by name because they each lived up to that name.
Rabbi Hofstedter in Dorash Dovid notes two ways that a name is meaningful. First, the name itself may have intrinsic meaning. Or the name may be significant because a special person with admirable traits we wish to emulate carried that name. Just as a child gets physical characteristics from his parents, he absorbs the parents' motivation in choosing a particular name for him.
But the name includes only the potential of the strengths within the child, Writes Rabbi Schorr in Ohr Gedalyahu. Each name, each characteristic of man, reflects a different facet of Hakodosh Boruch Hu. Our challenge is to bring that potential to fruition and thereby reflect the glory of God in the universe. When we fail in that mission, we remain in galus/exile, distant from our true selves; when we live up to our names, we connect to our spiritual core, to the Torah within us, and bring redemption.
Rabbi Gifter gives a unique perspective for the Torah's using the name Moshe Rabbenu instead of another name. The very name, both in meaning and in the woman who raised him are constant reminders that in spite of our best efforts, Hashem runs the world. Pharaoh's soothsayers predicted that a boy would be born who would save Bnei Yisroel and take them out of Egypt. Pharaoh's resulting plan to throw all newborn baby boys into the Nile was the very source not only of the savior's salvation, but also of that savior being raised in the palace, bouncing on "Grandpa Pharaoh's" knee. Hashem is indeed the Master of irony!
Rav S. R. Hirsch points out that grammatically Moshe Rabbenu is not passive, [was] pulled out, but active, [he] is pulling out. Rav Hirsch suggests that Pharaoh's daughter wished to sensitive this child to the suffering of others and to be drawn to action, just as she was sensitive to a baby's cry and saved him.
Indeed, she succeeded greatly. It was that characteristic of chesed, of sensitivity to others and acting to deliver them from their pain that made him the perfect person to lead and deliver Bnei Yisroel from their enslavement, writes Rabbi Schlesinger. His first act as he matured, the Torah tells us, was to go out to see and empathize with the burdens of Bnei Yisroel, to actually carry the same yoke and the boulders on his own shoulders. Although, as Artscroll on the Medrash interjects, Moshe Rabbenu had already secured Shabbat as a day of rest for the slaves, he had to personally see their suffering and carry the load with them. Moshe Rabbenu went beyond doing one chesed; he followed up, he went out to see if he could do more. Empathy is the highest form of chesed.
Yaakov Avinu and Yosef Hatzadikwere models of mesiras nefesh, of going beyond simple requirements in helping others, continues Rav Schlesinger. We can see this quality in Yosef Hatzadikwhen he goes beyond merely interpreting Pharaoh's dream. Yosef Hatzadiksees the problem and immediately presents a solution to prevent the suffering starvation of the Egyptians, and indeed of the world. When the brothers died, the sense of community they maintained was lost, and Bnei Yisroel was left leaderless.
A Jewish leader needs tremendous compassion, and must take responsibility for his people. When Yosef Hatzadiktold his father that his brothers had acted sinfully, Yaakov Avinu understood that Yosef Hatzadikwas taking responsibility for his brothers' spiritual and moral growth, albeit the brothers did not see it this way. That is why when Yaakov Avinu heard Yosef's dreams, he may have appeared to be angry, but internally, he saved and guarded the vision, wondering when and how the message of leadership alluded to in those dreams would materialize.
Interestingly, the Oshover Rebbe notes in Be'er Moshe that the day Moshe Rabbenu was pulled from the Nile was the twenty-first of Nissan, the day Moshe Rabbenu himself would take Bnei Yisroel from the water at the splitting of the Red Sea. Thus, Moshe Rabbenu was continuing the chesed Pharaoh's daughter had done for him some eighty years earlier.
Just as Pharaoh's daughter had infused this sensitivity into Moshe Rabbenu, so do we all have the power to infuse others, and even inanimate objects with energies and characteristics. In support of this idea, Rabbi Shmulevitz points out that When Channa brought her son Shmuel Hanavi to Eli the Priest to begin Shmuel Hanavi's service to Hashem, she gave Shmuel Hanavi a little coat she had made for him. The medrash tells us that as the child Shmuel Hanavi grew into adulthood, the coat itself grew with him, for it had absorbed the cries and tears Channa expressed with each stitch. Shmuel Hanavi the Prophet carried his mother's love with him throughout his life, and transformed it into a continuing love and care for Bnei Yisroel.
Continuing on this theme, Rabbi Shmulevitz notes that the Beit Hamikdosh, an inanimate structure, had the power to atone for the sins of Bnei Yisroel through the power Hashem had invested in it. Today, that power can be invested in the altar of our homes, our tables, around which we practice hachnosat orchim/hosting guests, especially those who may need food for their souls as well as food for their bodies.
Rabbi Shmulevitz gives us another example. How is it possible that the ark Noach built was not shipwrecked and destroyed in the boiling, rushing waters of the flood? Rabbi Shmulevits answers that it was Noach's utter dedication and self sacrifice in building the ark over 120 years that enabled it to survive those tumultuous waters.
From the self sacrifice [and this could have been physically literal] of Pharaoh's daughter in rebelling against her father, Moshe Rabbenu absorbed the willingness to sacrifice himself for the good of others, that Moshe Rabbenu was able to challenge God Himself to erase him from the Book Hashem had written if Hashem would not forgive Bnei Yisroel for the sin of the golden calf.
Pharaoh's daughter merited that Moshe Rabbenu absorb this trait from her, that he devote his life in total service to Hashem and love for Bnei Yisroel, writes Rav Dunner. Every one of us, especially every parent, when we prepare our children's lunches, we should hope the food will help our children learn Torah better, or when we do the laundry, we should imagine we are helping our family look presentable before Hashem and before the world.
One of the major themes of Moshe Rabbenu's life is the importance of water. But water is also a major theme in life itself, ever since creation. Rabbi Uziel Milevsky points out that of all the days of creation. only the third day is not stamped with the approval of "Good." Our commentators find that since this was the first instance of separation, the separation of the upper waters from the lower waters, Hashem did not want to give this separation the stamp of approval.
Rabbi Milevsky discusses the purpose and symbolism of these waters. Water is necessary for life. The lower waters are necessary for physical life, while the upper waters nourish the soul through the Torah. The lower world, writes Rabbi Milevsky, is a mirror image of the upper world. The two worlds are meant to converge, with the energies flowing between them. By bringing the Torah down from the upper world, Moshe Rabbenu created the conduit between the two worlds. While the two worlds converged geographically at the site of the Beit Hamikdosh, today we have only the Torah to unite the two worlds and bring down the goodness that was denied at creation.
When Pharaoh's daughter found Moshe Rabbenu in the basket, she experienced a divine revelation; she understood Moshe Rabbenu's raison d'etre, and named him accordingly. With this truth being so manifest in the name Moshe Rabbenu, the Torah adopted it for the one whose mission it would become.
In fact, the spirit of God hovered over the waters at the beginning of creation, and is still hovering over the waters, writes Rabbi Mintzberg in Ben Melech. Therefore men are commanded to put a thread of techeilet/special blue in their tzitzit, a blue that will remind them of the sea, which will remind them of the sky, and ultimately remind them of Hashem's Throne of Glory.
Prophecy descends only in a place of purity or on the water, and Moshe Rabbenu, the "Man of God," was a man whose essence was water. He can ascend to the upper realm, to the very Throne of Glory, and bring the Torah down to the lower realm, and reunite the waters.
The ocean retains its pristine goodness, writes Rabbi Schorr, so that even today people go to the ocean to reflect and calm their nerves. The ocean, untouched by man, retains its connection to God. Therefore, Bnei Yisroel had to go through the waterbed and come out with the godliness necessary to accept the Torah and enter Eretz Yisroel. [We tap in to a similar idea when we enter a mikvah and come out in reborn purity. The mikvah waters may not go through metal piping, but must be transported through "natural earthen" concrete pipes. CKS]
Moshe Rabbenu's name is a constant reminder of chesed, and chesed is the essence of the world, writes the Menachem Zion, Rabbi Zaks. Therefore, if one is involved in acts of chesed, that name will survive, writes Rabbi Schachter. Before you give a name to a child, do an act of chesed to infuse the name with the chesed so that the child will grow to achieve his potential. Since chesed is eternal, the name, too, will be eternal.
As water, without barriers, will continue to spread out, so does chesed continue to spread beyond its initial recipient. Moshe Rabbenu came from the water, but the Torah he brought us and the chesed he modeled continue to flow and spread to Bnei Yisroel and, by extension, to the entire world.