Chasidut על ברכות 66:23
Kedushat Levi
Still on the subject of G’d “only” asking us to revere Him, etc; the Talmud in B’rachot 33 asks how Moses could possibly describe fear of and reverence for G’d, as something qualifying for the description as something “minimal,” i.e. כי אם? Surely a person who is in awe of Hashem has attained a lofty spiritual platform. The Talmud answers that from Moses’ personal vantage point, possessing reverence and awe for G’d was indeed something very minor, not requiring any great effort. The commentators, puzzled by this, ask that seeing Moses asked the Israelites at large to acquire such reverence and awe, Moses’ personal ease in having acquired it seems quite irrelevant?
It appears that an appropriate answer to this would be Exodus 1,21 where the Torah reports the reaction of the Jewish midwives to Pharaoh’s command to kill Jewish boy babies before they had actually been born. The Torah describes the midwives’ refusal to carry out Pharaoh’s command as being based on the fact that they were in fear and awe of the Jewish G’d not to commit murder. As a reward, G’d “built houses for these midwives.” Rashi explains that the “houses” referred to in that verse meant that their offspring would be Levites, Priests, or Royalty, i.e. the elite of the nation. In other words, Moses was born as a result of the reverence and awe for G’d displayed by his mother Yocheved when she put her life in danger by making sure that Jewish boy babies survived.
Moses was an extremely humble and modest man, according to the Torah’s testimony, more so than any other human being; from this it follows that he viewed the fact that he had survived birth at all as a reward for his mother’s awe of G’d which had prompted her to defy Pharaoh’s order to murder Jewish boy babies. He naturally, considered possession of such awe for G’d as something relatively easy to acquire, just as it had been a natural attribute of his mother. This is what the Talmud had in mind when it described this attribute as something relatively minor.
It appears that an appropriate answer to this would be Exodus 1,21 where the Torah reports the reaction of the Jewish midwives to Pharaoh’s command to kill Jewish boy babies before they had actually been born. The Torah describes the midwives’ refusal to carry out Pharaoh’s command as being based on the fact that they were in fear and awe of the Jewish G’d not to commit murder. As a reward, G’d “built houses for these midwives.” Rashi explains that the “houses” referred to in that verse meant that their offspring would be Levites, Priests, or Royalty, i.e. the elite of the nation. In other words, Moses was born as a result of the reverence and awe for G’d displayed by his mother Yocheved when she put her life in danger by making sure that Jewish boy babies survived.
Moses was an extremely humble and modest man, according to the Torah’s testimony, more so than any other human being; from this it follows that he viewed the fact that he had survived birth at all as a reward for his mother’s awe of G’d which had prompted her to defy Pharaoh’s order to murder Jewish boy babies. He naturally, considered possession of such awe for G’d as something relatively easy to acquire, just as it had been a natural attribute of his mother. This is what the Talmud had in mind when it described this attribute as something relatively minor.
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