MOSES PART 2

What is Moses’ calling?  Clearly the divine wants him to be the leader of the Jewish/Hebrew people and lead them from the exile of Egypt to the Promised Land. But is this Moses’ calling?  Can a calling be different than the divine plan?

Moses, to be blunt, is a reluctant leader with no natural feel for leadership.   The four books that tell his story are a testament to his inability to lead his people.  Here’s why I think this.

Moses never successfully rallies the people to his leadership. There’s always resistance, and a lot of it, from Aaron and Miriam, from Korach, from the people constantly complaining about their lot and how they were better off in Egypt, from their mingling with neighboring people after being commanded to not do that,  the people never seem to embrace his leadership. You can blame the people for this, and the Hebrew Bible does exactly that.  It  gives Miriam a skin disease, has the earth swallow Korach and his supporters, has the whole generation born in slavery die in the desert, has the Levites murder Israelites who chase after foreign Gods.  But in my experience, people actually want to be led and are grateful for people who take on the burden of leadership—as long as you are a reasonably competent leader. 

Moses does absolutely nothing to train any kind of cadre of future leaders. True leaders with a passion for leadership always spend an enormous percentage of their time working to develop leaders within their organizations.  We see absolutely nothing of this.

Moses also shows no innate ability to organize a legal system. At first he is trying to be the judge for all cases, big and small, until his father in law Jethro, tells him “the thing you are doing is not good.” (Exodus 18:17). Jethro tells him how to organize the legal system (18:17-26).  Later on in Numbers, after the people complain to Moses about YHVH’s fires and Moses successfully intervenes, he says to YHVH “I’m not able, I, by myself, to carry this entire people, because it is too heavy for me. And if this is how you treat me, kill me, if I have found favor in your eyes, and let me not see my suffering.” (Numbers 11:14-15). 

This is a man who hasn’t learned anything about leadership and finds it enough of a burden that he is willing to die to be shed of it. Sure, maybe it is hyperbole on his part, but can you point to anything that indicates that Moses actually likes being the leader of the people?   Recall also how reluctant Moses was to take on the leadership of the Israelites back in Egypt.  The failure of Moses to rally the people around his leadership is a failure of him as a leader.  This doesn’t make him a bad person, it just makes him a bad leader.  And that means, to my way of thinking, that leadership is not his calling.

Moses is also portrayed as the lawgiver of Israel.  Is that his calling?  There’s a story in the Talmud (Mnachot 29B) where Moses finds himself sitting in the back of Rabbi Akiva’s classroom and does not understand a word that is being said.  He’s having a world of trouble following the discussion and then one of the students asks about the source of a ruling and Akiva answers that is a law given unto Moses at Sinai. Now the moral of the story in the Talmud is a justification of Rabbinic oral law and that Moses is content that his revelation includes its expansion.  But to me the moral of this story is that Moses has no feel for law.  In the 4 books he basically serves as a mouthpiece for YHVH in YHVH’s promulgation of the law, rather than being some kind of great judge or creative source of law for new situations.  I see no evidence that law is his calling.

So what is Moses’ unique gift and does he bring it back to his people?  First, I would say that his unique gift is his ability to connect with the divine.  This is true from the Burning Bush, through his actions when he returns to Egypt and then in his ability to successfully argue with YHVH and protect the people from YHVH’s wrath in any number of instances.  He is the one with whom YHVH shares YHVH’s name, he is the one who communes with YHVH on the two vision fasts on Mt. Sinai, he is the one who sees the back of the divine.  No one in Hebrew/Jewish history has a closer connection with YHVH. 

So if this is his unique gift, his calling to connect with the divine, does he develop a way to embody this connection with a beloved community with grace and ease?  Nope. I am talking about embodying the gift with grace and ease because when we are manifesting our unique purpose, an important hallmark is that it is easy and we express ourselves in a powerful way that appeals to people. Think about Joseph as a contrast.  He embodies being the life giver through his delivery system of storing grain to save people from famine and this delivery system works.  He dies content, knowing he has embodied why he came to the planet.   

I understand this is a radically minority view, but I just don’t see this with Moses. He seems to me to die discontent, cheated out of the opportunity to actually get to the promised land. He says “But YHVH was cross at me for your sakes (italics mine) and he would not listen to me” (Deuteronomy 3:26) imploring YHVH to let him into the Promised Land.  Instead YHVH says enough. “You have much.  Don’t go on speaking to me anymore of this thing.” (ibid).  Even if you think that the punishment does not fit the crime, Moses simply has not pushed back.  Nor has he accepted his punishment, nor taken any responsibility.  This is not a man who believes that he has fulfilled his purpose in life.

Moses on Mt. Nebo looking at the Promised Land.