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Parshas Shemos 5770: The Man With
No Name
By Rabbi
Joshua (anonymously known as the Hoffer) Hoffman
The Torah
in describing the marriage of Moshe's parents does not record their names.
Rather, it says, "A man from the house of Levi went and took a daughter of
Levi" (Shemos, 2:1). Why doesn't
the Torah identify who these two people are?
Ramban says that at this point in the narrative the Torah did not wish
to interrupt with a lengthy description of Moshe's lineage. The main objective
now was to relate the story of the birth of Moshe who would lead the
nation in its redemption. Later, in the next parsha (Shemos, 6:20), there would
be an opportunity to delineate Moshe's background, including the names of his
parents. Rabbi Dr. Levi Meier in his book, Moses: The Prince, The
Prophet, writes that the Torah specifically did not want to mention Moshe's
lineage in order to show that Judaism does not view its leaders as necessarily
coming from extraordinary backgrounds. They can come from humble beginnings and
still attain greatness. Rav Zalman Sorotzkin in his Oznayim Le Torah similarly says
that every Jewish child that is born has the possibility of becoming a leader
of his people provided that his parents have the proper dedication to God and
selflessness that Moshe's parents had. I
believe, however, that there is another message behind the anonymity of Moshe's
parents and especially the term 'ish' used to describe Moshe's father which
goes back to the very beginning of the process which led to the exile of the
nation in Egypt.
In parshas Vayeishev, when Yaakov sends Yosef to seek out the welfare of his
brothers in Shechem, we are told that Yosef was wondering on the road until a
man ('ish') found him and asked what he was looking for. He answered that he was seeking his brothers
and the man directed him to where they may be. The midrash, cited by Rashi and
Ramban, says that this anonymous man was the angel Gavriel, who is referred to
as 'ish' in the book of Daniel. Gavriel, the rabbis tell us, was there to
guide Yosef to his brothers and thereby help bring about his sale and the
eventual descent of the rest of the family to Egypt. This, in turn, would
lead to the exile there and ultimately to the redemption. Interestingly,
the Yalkut Reuveni on parshas Shemos cites the Zohar which asks why Moshe's
father Amram is not mentioned here by name but only by the appellation 'ish.'
The Zohar gives two answers. First, the
Zohar says that it was not Amram who went and took a daughter of Levi.
Rather, it was the angel Gavriel who went and took Yocheved, Moshe's
mother, and brought her back to Amram after he had divorced her. Second, the
Zohar says that Amram did not go on his own. Rather it was God through His
divine providence who moved Amram to remarry Yocheved and who went together
with him. This explanation may reflect the midrash cited in Rashi that Amram
acted based on a prophecy told over to him by his daughter Miriam, that the son
born from his remarriage would redeem the Jewish nation. Thus God went with Amram
when he remarried Yocheved in the sense of motivating his actions. Therefore, he is referred to as 'ish,'
meaning Gavriel, denoting the element of divine providence behind what
transpired.
Why was it the angel Gavriel who got involved with Yosef's search for his
brothers and Amram's second marriage to Yocheved? In other words, why did divine providence
take this form? The name Gavriel is a contraction of the words 'gevuros
Keil,' or the strength of God. My teacher, Rav Aharon Soloveichik, zt'l explained
that the trait of gevurah does not refer to physical strength, but to
perseverance. Thus Yitzchak, who personified the trait of gevurah,
distinguished himself by continually re-digging the wells that his father
Avraham had dug and that the Pellishtim had closed up. In regard to the process of exile and
redemption that began with Yosef and ended with Moshe, Gavriel was behind the
scenes, appearing when the process seemed to be going off-track and redirecting
the events so that the divine plan would come to fruition.
The remarriage of Amram and Yocheved, urged on by their daughter Miriam based
on a prophecy she had received, was driven by this sense of perseverance as
well. Rav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch points
out that the Torah does not simply say that a man from the house of Levi
married a daughter of Levi, but that a man from the house of Levi went and
married a daughter of Levi. The word 'vayeilech,' meaning 'and he went,' points
to a special effort on the part of these two people. Getting remarried under
the conditions in which the people were living at that time was an act of
perseverance, reflecting the trait of gevurah which is symbolized by the angel
Gavriel. Therefore, their names are not mentioned, just as Gavriel's name
is not mentioned at the pivotal moments in which he appears in the unfolding
drama, reflecting the selflessness of their actions. Similar to the angel Gavriel,
their sole motivation was to help bring about the process of redemption as
prophesied by their daughter Miriam.
We noted above Rabbi Sorotzkin's teaching that each of us has
the capacity to dedicate ourselves to serving God in a selfless manner just as
Moshe's parents did. We may add that Moshe, following in the path of his
parents, also served God selflessly, as reflected in the fact that his name is
mentioned in the Haggadah only once. His purpose in all he did was to help
bring about God's plan for the nation, as charged to him in his first prophetic
experience, which is recorded in this week's parsha. The Rambam says that
every person has the ability to be as righteous as Moshe. In the context of our
discussion, we can understand this to mean that every person has the ability to
serve God in a selfless way, just as Moshe did, following the example of his
parents. (See Rabbi Levi's book, pg. 13, for a somewhat different explanation
of the Rambam in the context of his explanation of the anonymity of Moshe's
parents in the second chapter of Shemos. This explanation can also be found in
Limud Yomi, or A Daily Dose of Torah, series two, to parshas Shemos.
However, it is attributed there to the generic ba'alei mussar, rather than to
Rabbi Levi. Rabbi Levi himself, in his book, does not cite any source for his
explanation).
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