Shmot - Short Thought
There's a really great website call vbm, virtual beit medrash. And there's a part of it called SURF Little Torah (SALT). Yesterday I read something really nice on that site on Parshat Shemot. The author, David Silverberg, points out five parallels between Moshe's arrival in Midyan and Yaakov's arrival in Charan. Then he points out a striking contrast between this crossroad in the lives of these two men.
Yaakov knew that he was entering a phase away from home and that he would return to Canaan. Moshe had left Egypt and thought Midyan was where he's remain for the rest of his life. He was called by G-d and told to go back to lead the Jews out of Egypt when he was 80 years old!
The lesson here seems to be be that even "late" in life we need to be open to a new call from G-d. We all get into routines and grooves, but we all also never know what G-d has in store for us.
posted by rabbi neil fleischmann @ 4:20 PM
4 Comments:
80 years old then was not 80 years old today. Moshe married and had his first child at almost that age.
you can click over to the text of The Living orah - here:
http://bible.ort.org/books/pentd2.asp?ACTION=displaypage&BOOK=2&CHAPTER=2
it seems like he got married and had his first child soon after he ran away and then it says that many das passed...
I hear. Although I saw in Ramban the other day that there's some question whether the child getting the bris at the inn was Gershom or Eliezer. And in any case, one child was certainly born right around then, which is untypical of 80-year-olds nowadays (to say the least!).
yeah, i hear you too - it doesn't mean he was super old. it was 2/3 into his life - when you look at it that way it's much younger than presidents of the US, even this young one.
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