Parashat Shemot: The Vision of the Burning Thornbush

 

 

 

All through the parashot of the Book of Bereishit, we have dealt with the derashot of the Amoraim of Eretz Israel in Bereishit Rabba. To begin this shiur, I wish to discuss a number of characteristics of this Midrashic work.

 

First, let us consider certain structural and formal characteristics. Bereishit Rabba is an exegetical work of Midrash with many petichtot, which comb through the words and language of the Torah and connect verse to verse. At the beginning of a new parasha, there are several petichtot on the first verse. In addition, there is the phenomenon of pointing out patterns of meaning in the language of the Tanakh (for example: "Everywhere that it says ‘Vehaya’").

 

Throughout these derashot, we have encountered Tannaitic disagreements regarding aggadic or biblical exegesis (Rabbi Yehuda and Rabbi Nechemya), and diverse or contradictory derashot of the Amoraim of Eretz Israel. Many Greek and Aramaic words are also embedded in Bereishit Rabba, and there are strings of key sentences, usually throughout the beginning of the parasha. In the text, statements are prominently reported in the name of their authors across the generations. In this way, we have encountered the clear aggadic tradition of the Amoraim of Eretz Israel.

 

In the conceptual realm, let us point out two features of Bereishit Rabba. One of its salient features is the link between the Torah and the concrete existential circumstances and struggles of the Amoraim of Eretz Israel — famine, retaining possession of Eretz Israel, Torah centers in Babylonia, taxes, the Roman Empire, the Galilee as a Torah center — and the values-based questions that emerge from them. We have further seen that throughout the work, as we pay careful attention to the succession of derashot, we may appreciate conceptual issues harmoniously woven into a symphony of interpretation.

 

Through our studies, we have been privileged to spend a small amount of time with the sages who delve into the wording of the Torah, to consider their life-stories deeply and to make direct connections between their personal experiences and their exegesis.

 

 

As we move on to the Book of Shemot, we will focus on the development of the ideas and derashot of the Sages, from the Tannaim and Amoraim of Eretz Israel to the late Midrashic works.[1] For Parashat Shemot, we will examine the vision of the burning thornbush, in particular the question of why God choose this method to reveal himself to Moshe.

 

 

The revelation in the vision of the thornbush is widely addressed by the Tannaim of the school of Rabbi Akiva:[2]

 

 

 

The speakers in the Mekhilta are from two generations: four from the sages of Yavneh — Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananya, Rabbi Yosei the Galilean, and Rabbi Elazar ben Arakh; and one disciple of Rabbi Akiva —  Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai.[3] However, there is room to wonder about the order in which they appear, which is not in the chronological order of the speakers.[4]

 

The remarks of four of the Tannaim in the Mekhilta are directed to the context of the verses. Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai, Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua relate to the servitude of the people of Israel in Egypt, whereas Rabbi Elazar ben Arakh relates to the issue of Moshe's acceptance of leadership. In contrast, Rabbi Yosei the Galilean relates to the general issue of how God reveals Himself in the world. The Mekhilta records the words of Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai, Rabbi Yehoshua and Rabbi Elazar ben Arakh in a more expansive manner. This seems to indicate the centrality of the idea emerging from their words for the entire passage.

 

We will try below to offer an explanation for the order of the appearance of the various sages in the Mekhilta. The words of Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai, which are inserted at the beginning of the passage, present the reality of the servitude in Egypt from Israel's perspective, whereas Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua relate to its meaning from God's perspective. While God goes down to rescue His people, in accordance with the words of Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Yehoshua points to the Shekhina going into exile along with Israel.

 

The words of Rabbi Yehuda and Rabbi Chiya that are placed as a continuation of the words of Rabbi Yehoshua sharpen the idea that exile is a sharp reality of Divine distress. The idea contained in the words of Rabbi Yosei the Galilean is a continuation of the words of Rabbi Yehuda and Rabbi Chiya in that, according to him, God's glory is almost never revealed in this world. Whereas Rabbi Yehoshua relates to the "shared destiny" of God and the people of Israel, Rabbi Yosei focuses on the religious norms prevailing in human society.

 

It seems that the compiler of the Mekhilta wishes to conclude with the words of Rabbi Elazar ben Arakh. This clearly emerges from the flowery, effusive formulation of the question: "Why did the Holy One, blessed be He, reveal Himself from the highest heavens and speak with Moshe from the thornbush? Surely He should have spoken from the cedars of Lebanon or from the mountaintops or the hilltops." His answer relates to the discussion conducted between God and Moshe regarding his acceptance of leadership in the following verses. On the one hand, the words of Rabbi Elazar ben Arakh relate not to distress, but to a solution for the situation presented in the remarks of the earlier Sages, through the appointment of Moshe as the leader who will take the people out of their bondage. However, according to what he says, the vision of the thornbush embodies a contraction of God's glory toward Moshe, in order to allow him to freely accept upon himself the mission.

 

The parable brought at the end of the words of Rabbi Elazar ben Arakh emphasizes Moshe's freedom in the face of God's "need," as it were, that he accept the mission, and God's "anger" against the backdrop of the great effort, as it were, unsuccessfully invested in persuading him. It also reflects God's contraction into the world of concealment, the affliction of the Shekhina, and Chazal's definition of the leader of the nation as one who is prepared to turn God's distress into his individual challenge.

 

From where does the question raised by the Tannaim stem? The formulation of the question that echoes five times, "Why did the Holy One, blessed be, reveal Himself from the highest heavens and speak with Moshe from the thornbush?" raises a contradiction between God and the manner in which He reveals Himself in the world.

 

Their question does not appear to be the philosophical question with which the classical authorities of Jewish thought, such as Rabbi Yehuda Ha-Levi and the Rambam, struggle, but rather a question about how God reveals Himself here, in the prophetic vision to Moshe when God wants to appoint him as the leader of Israel. Their answer teaches an important principle regarding the prophets: the vision revealed to the prophet accords with the reality that God wishes to repair on different levels, partly at the level of historical-external reality, and partly at the level of internal reality— in God and in man.

 

The Tannaitic derashot proceed and develop throughout Rabbinic literature, but the paths of the various derashot are not all equal. Some are mentioned rarely, others often. Some are mentioned in subsequent generations, others only much later.

 

The derashot in Mekhilta de-Rashbi about the burning thornbush are hardly mentioned in the Midrashic literature of the Amoraim of Eretz Israel.[5] On the other hand, in Pesikta de-Rav Kahana and in Shir Ha-shirim Rabba, we find a different answer regarding the meaning of the revelation to Moshe at the thornbush, though it too is offered by one of the Tannaim:[6]

 

 

Rabban Gamliel's answer is the polar opposite, with regard to its content, of the answer given by Rabbi Yosei the Galilean. Rabbi Yosei the Galilean points to the thornbush as one of the few places in which God could have rested His Shekhina, whereas, according to Rabban Gamliel, the Shekhina rests even on a thornbush.[7]

 

 

The preoccupation with the symbolism of the vision of the thornbush returns in the late Midrash. In Midrash Tanchuma, we find a single anonymous statement that combines the statement of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai with that of Rabbi Yehoshua:[8]

 

 

This statement appears at the end of a section that assigns symbolic meaning to the wording of the text in the story of the vision at the thornbush in Shemot 3:1-5. It lacks the sting of the words of Rabbi Chiya and Rabbi Yehuda, that even God Himself, as it were, is in trouble, and the symmetry between the situation of the people of Israel and that of God finds expression only at the site of the revelation.

 

This idea returns in another late Midrashic work, Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer, with new symbolism:

 

 

In the Tannaitic derashot, significance is attached to the lowliness or prickliness of the thornbush (in the derasha of Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai that one who enters a thornbush cannot emerge from it unscathed). In this derasha, the thorns and the fire bear the symbolic meaning of Jewish survival in exile, and victory over the other nations in the future.

 

The symbolism of the revelation to Moshe in the thornbush is broadly addressed in Shemot Rabba:

 

 

 

 

 

In this source, there are many references to the symbolism in God's revelation to Moshe at the burning thornbush. It first brings some of the comments of the Tannaim in the Mekhilta (Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai, in the name of Rabbi Yosei; Rabbi Eliezer; an adaptation of Rabbi Yehoshua as in the Tanchuma), and also the derasha of the Tanna Rabbi Yehoshua ben Korcha. Afterwards it records additional symbolic meanings of the thornbush, in the name of four Amoraim of Eretz Israel, and an anonymous statement dealing with the numerical vale of the letters in the word “ha-seneh.” In contrast to most of the derashot from the Mekhilta, some of the derashot that are attributed to the Amoraim are completely disconnected from the context of the verse, and are related to the symbolism of the traits of the thornbush in connection to the people of Israel in general.

 

Thus, we witness an interesting phenomenon in the history and development of the derashot of Chazal: The issue of the symbolic meaning of God's revelation in the thornbush appears at the beginning and the end of Midrashic literature, in the words of the Tannaim and in the late Midrash composed in the Middle Ages. It seems that the question that disturbs the Tannaim regarding the contradiction between the greatness of God and His revelation in the world is not raised with the same severity. Over the course of the generations, the answers that are given turn the question mark into an exclamation point, bearing great faith in God's closeness to His chosen people, the people of Israel, across time and the border wall of exile. We witness the effect of aggadic material on religious consciousness, from the time of the Tannaim in the first century CE to the first half of the period of the Rishonim, the time of the appearance of Shemot Rabba, a thousand years later.

 

 

In the derashot of the Tannaim and in the derashot appearing in the late Midrash, the vision of the burning thornbush is always expounded in connection to the people of Israel and God, in the context of the servitude in Egypt or over the course of Israel's exile. In the Babylonian Talmud, the vision of the burning thornbush is given an entirely different symbolic meaning, and it is expounded as an expression of the value of lowliness and humility:

 

 

In contrast to the other derashot about the thornbush throughout Rabbinic literature, this derasha emphasizes the lowliness of the thornbush as the reason that God rests His Shekhina upon it.

 

In Tractate Gittin, we read:

 

 

God's ability to bear the bondage of the people of Israel is shifted to empathy on the part of God for the individual who is capable of restraining himself in the face of an injustice committed against him by another person.

 

Therefore, alongside the Tannaitic tradition transmitted through the late Midrash, we find in Rabbinic literature another tradition regarding the symbolic meaning of the thornbush.[9]

 

 

(Translated by David Strauss)