Shemoth: the burning bush and the gol...

Shemoth: the burning bush and the golden bough

 

 

The burning bush.  Moshe finds Gd.  Gd has coyly attracted Moshe's attention, signalling him with a burning bush that is not consumed.  Moshe turns away from his work (herding Yithro's sheep [hence stealing from Yithro]) to see this wonder. 

 Note that the word sneh consists of the same letters as ha'nes ( the miracle, the sign).

 

The burning bush is an interactive nes.  The burning of wood is a hidden (nistar) property.   Looking at wood, it is not obvious that it can be made to fuel a process that produces heat and light.  The nes is that a process that Moshe fundamentally does not understand  is now occurring in a manner that we think impossible.

It is hard for me to imagine what people in the time of Moshe thought about the nature of fire.  Surely they did not think that it was hot gases generated by an exergonic chemical reaction with an activation energy.  They did not think that the light produced was quantized.  They saw the miracle for what it was... a miracle.  

The dissociation of consumption from production, free fire...what kind of message is that?  Only that the common understanding of the world may not include all the nisim and nistarim.

 

Vos ken brenne und nit oyfheren?  

 

prior years

 1/21/09 :http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AXfHEywWA3ieZDRobXc5N18zMDVmNzZrazhjcQ&hl=en

 1/15/09 : http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AXfHEywWA3ieZDRobXc5N18zMDNmZHpwd3FkbQ&hl=en

12/28/07 : http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AXfHEywWA3ieZDRobXc5N18xNzRkdDN6dzlkZA&hl=en

12/28/07 : http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AXfHEywWA3ieZDRobXc5N18xNzVma2puNXNkNw&hl=en

 

Vayechi: staying in Egypt

 
Vayechi: staying in Egypt

 

 

Vayechi describes the last days of Jacob.  In the end, Jacob moves  to the Miami of his day. He lives in Egypt for the last 17 years of his life. We know that only the first 5 of these years were years of world famine.  The reason for the following 12 years in Egypt is not clearly accounted for. Perhaps Jacob was sick and old and could not travel.

 

Jacob ends his life transferring the title to the land of Canaan to his offspring. But the offspring also stay in Egypt. Once they have seen the bright lights of the world's greatest civilization it is hard for them to return and fight for the more desolate, promised land.

 

Rashi on 50:14 points out that  at Jacobs funeral his sons were the last to leave Egypt and after the funeral they will the first to return. This gives the impression that they loved Egypt. They did not want to leave and he could not wait to return.

 

Ahhhhh, Miami a micahiah!

 

last year: 1/2009:  http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AXfHEywWA3ieZDRobXc5N18zMDJoY3F3M2JkOA&hl=en

 

12/2007:  http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AXfHEywWA3ieZDRobXc5N18xNzJjcTY5aHhjcA&hl=en