In the popular culture mediated by the imagination of Hollywood, Moses is associated with the image of Charlton Heston and Yul Brynner in the Cecil B. DeMille classic. Yet consider how authentically significant this story is from the perspective of western history itself.

The Exodus from Egypt, from Africa -- from which Jews got the Passover, from which in turn the Christians got our Communion, or the Mass (eucharist in Greek) -- and from which all Western Civilization got, directly or indirectly, the Bible (ie, Torah, or Pentateuch, in Greek)

Herman Wouk writes: "It is well to bear in mind a few facts about him when we discuss his Torah. His were the hands that broke the gods of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome. Islam and Christianity stand on his shoulders; both faiths are unthinkable without him. The faithful believe he talked with God; the record is that he changed history exactly as if he had. He disappreared into darkness on a mountain and came back with a law. First Israel, and then half the world, accepted that law as the word of God. He was a most unlikely kind of folk hero, a man of eighty, a desert dweller with a wife and children. He was called by God to do a hard job, and like a man of sense he tried to beg off. Once he put his hand to the task, however, there was no standing before him. Moses grew to the superhuman size of his job, and grew to the last.

"Whatever power Moses had, wherever it came from, it was enough to wrest the freedom of a slave people from the grand military tyranny of the ancient world."

Herman Wouk. This Is My God, p163

how you like my page?
  (Robert Shepherd)

        E
אש התורה‎
Fire of the Torah
Aish ha-Torah

The Law of Moses : Schoolmaster to Mankind

Ever since Sinai, the moral imperatives of the Five Books of Moses, reinforced by the thunderous indignation of the Prophets, have provided one of the greates inspirations for social reformers and religious idealists, motivating their perennial concern for man's physical and spiritual welfare and for the evolution of a more just and humane society. Indeed, it seems fair to say that the Hebrew Bible's influence has been especially important and profound within the whole ethical framework of Western civilization.

Gabriel Sivan. The Bible and Civilization.

Moses thus became in effect the teacher extraordinaire. The Jews long have referred to him as Moshe Rabbenu in Hebrew

משה רבנו

In other words. "Moses our Teacher/Rabbi." Without exaggeration, Moses is, bar none, the most important prophet in Judaism.

Not just Judaism and Christianity, but Islam as well (to a certain extent) -- have been influenced by the ethical legacy of the Hebrew Bible. Muhammed borrowed many of his religious concepts from both Judaism and Christianity. Gabriel Sivan says

"The three great monotheistic religions are thus heirs to the same moral code, which has its roots in the Bible."

This is the Moses paradox
Not only are we told that the human race originated in Africa, but we may well declare that the roots of Western Culture, specifically the Bible, also came from that continent. If Africa was known, a century ago, as the DARK continent, it would appear that at least in the time of the patriarchs of Genesis, the Nile civilization was a region of much "light."

Where did we get the Bible of the Jews? Where did the Jews themselves get the Torah?

The Christian Testament tells us in the book of Acts that Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. Indeed, he was accorded the benefits of the highest possible education that Egyptian pre-eminence had to offer. He was surely literate in the priestly language of the sacred literature of the Nile. He may well have been unversed in the Hebrew tongue, since when he received his divine commission, his main objection regarding his own qualifications for leadership was his communication lack vis-a-vis his Hebrew countrymen. He had lived among the royalty of Egypt, educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, their science, their priestly knowledge. Then he fled to the wilderness, and lived among the Midianites, an Ethiopian or Kushite people (black. We learn Moses first met Jehovah during his sojourn there, among the Midyanim (blacks). His Hebrew fluency seems to have been lacking.

Yet somehow he overcame all that. Though he had others, including his older brother Aaron, to help him, Moses himself was the inspiring soul behind. He was "incontestably the chief personage of the history, in a sense in which no one else is described before or since. He was led into a closer communion with the invisible world than was vouchsafed to any other in the Old Testament."

Among the prophets he was unique. We are told of him that the divine revelations were made "mouth to mouth." Numbers 12:8. Moses is, as it would seem, the only character of the Old Testament to whom Christ expressly likens himself: "Moses wrote of me." John 5:46.

In the Bible of the Jews (Hebraica Veritas, as Jerome called it) it was to Moses that was revealed the mysterious and inscrutable "name of the Unnameable" -- Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh, I am that I am. This was the 'Burning Bush' episode, (See Jaroslav Pelikan).

Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh - I Will Be What I Will Be
Y - Song from the Yemenite Diwan, written in the 17^th Century by the poet Shalom Shabbazi. I learned it from the Ofra Haza video, definitely check it out!

A cynic, looking critically at the precipitating causes of the Exodus, might almost credit the entire affair to a fluke, namely, the overpopulation of a despised minority (the Hebrew slaves) there in the northeast corner of Africa. The high Hebrew birthrates, combined with the resultant nervousness of the threatened upholders of the status quo, formed the social backdrop against which the exodus led by Moses took place.

The Egyptians hoped to institute a policy of birth control, or barring that, of infanticide, which applied to the Hebrews only. We are told that this policy was not working. The harder they oppressed the Israelite minority, the greater the population explosion among the Israelites. Thus, fearing revolution or upheaval from below, namely, the sexual revolution of a cohesive and reproductively fecund race, the dominant powers instituted deliberate measures to suppress the sexually reproductive Hebrews, and set the world the first example of anti-Semitism. Even to the point of infanticide of Jewish babies.

"Mighty hand and a stretched out arm" [Repeated some dozen of times throughout Scriptures, this expression refers to the miraculous intervention recorded in the Mosaic chronicle]

The great medieval commentator Maimonides, a giant in biblical Judaism as well as the philosophy and science of his times, extolled his namesake Moses above all else for his humility. Moses possessed the full measure of intellectiual and ethical qualities, was a master in doctrine, wisdom, and prophecy, yet God lauded only his humility: 'The man Moses was the most humble man on earth.' (Numbers 12:3) See Abraham Joshua Heschel. Maimonides.

To Moses alone did Christ expressly liken himself. Deuteronomy 18: 15 God had told Moses,
The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him shall ye hearken.

Phrased differently, in Deuteronomy 18: 18 God told Moses "I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him." Christ seemed to transform the approach of Jewish religion. Yet he enjoined his hearers to honor those who "sit in Moses' seat" even when they themselves compromised the high ideals of Moses' message. Christ denied that he came, in any sense, to destroy the Law of Moses, asserting that he came instead to fulfill. "Not one jot or tittle shall pass from the Law till all be fulfilled."

Judaism has long taught that Israel would have innumerable prophets from amongst themselves. The rabbis said that (biblically) there were 48 prophets [men] and seven prophetess [women]. They were: Sarah, Miriam, Deborah, Hannah, Abigail, Hulda, and Esther.

A Calvinist Biblicist, Oswald T. Allis, gives us a Protestant take on the great Hebrew lawgiver. "The intense desire of man to know the unknown future and to control it if at all possible is strikingly indicated here [Deuteronomy 18: 9-22]. Nine ways by which the inhabitants of Canaan sought to do this are specified and denounced. They are not for Israel, for whom God has provided a better way of knowing His will. 'The Lord will raise up' a Prophet. This office is a distinct vocation. It is individual and personal, not inherited. The calls of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and of Ezekiel illustrate this with especial clearness and detail (cf. also Amos 7:14- ). 'From the midst of thee, of thy brethren.' Prophecy is a distinctively Israelitish phenomenon. No other religion has anything to compare to it. Balaam is a notable exception, but one which proves the rule! 'Like unto me.' Moses is the great type of the supreme Prophet who is to come (John 1:21). He must have perfect obedience because "I will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.' Deuteronomy 18: 20-22 indicate quite clearly that it refers to a succession of prophetic voices..... The test of true prophecy is here stated to be its fulfillment. It must be remembered, therefore, that this test could apply only to those 'words' or 'signs' which belonged to the immediate future. It seems to be quite clear that the prophets were accredited as true prophets by the fulfillment of their words regarding the near future (e.g. Samuel 10: 1-8) and by the signs and wonders which they performed (e.g. I Kings 17: 24).

[God Spake by Moses: an exposition of the Pentateuch (1951). P 144]

History tells us that Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. What history does not tell us is pretty much open to speculation. Sigmund Freud supposed that Moses, leader and creator of the Jewish people, was originally an Egyptian, as the etymology of his name suggests. While the Hebrew name Moshe means "draw out" the word is actually from the Egyptian mose, the noun version of which means boy, and the verb version of which means, 'to give birth.' So, working the Egyptian and Hebrew angles together, Moses was the boy drawn from the Nile.

Many Egyptian kings had this name, usually tacked to the name of a god. The more famous kings were were Rameses (Ra is born) and Tuthmoses (Toth is born). Or Ptah-mose (Ptah is born). Isn'tt it ironic, then, that the greatest Hebrew prophet and lawgiver, the man who single-handedly organized the Israelites and led them out of Egypt, has an Egyptian name? And his name is not just any Egyptian name, it's a religious Egyptian name. Moses' name reflects basic Egyptian religious beliefs that are, in truth, not as different from Mosaic Judaism as the Book of Exodus might lead us to believe. See Ogden Goelet.

The biblical story of Moses records that, in order to avoid the persecution of the Pharoah [over the high Jewish birthrates], Moses' parents concealed him by the river in an ark of bulrushes. The word for that ark of bulrushes is called in the Hebrew teiva, a word similar to the Egyptian teb, meaning "a chest". It was from that ark or chest that the baby Moses was rescued by the Pharoah's daughter, becoming the most famous foster child in history.

Moses biography thus is a maddeningly complex and contradictory one. He grew up in the palace of his grandfather, the pharaoh; was appointed commander of the Egyptian armies; and apparently begged the Egyptian priests to teach him their magic. But then a kind of inner discovery occurred to him. He chose to identify the Jews as his own birthright people, "choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season."

Defending the Oppressed This transformation, or conversion, according to Zora Neale Hurston, changed history. In Hurston's view, Moses was a down-to-earth man; yet, through God, he was transformed into a hoodoo master: "He knows the ways and meaning of Light and he heard the voice of Darkness and knew its thoughts." She shows how he is transformed once he takes up the cause of the oppressed.

BLACK MOSES?

Since the princess brought up Moses as her own son, Freud makes the not unreasonable deduction that Moses was in fact her son, and therefore not Jewish in origin. He goes on the suggest that Moses had accepted the revolution of thought instigated by the Pharoah Akhenaten, who had substituted monotheism for the worship of a multiplicity of gods. When Akhenaten died, a reaction set in threatening monotheistic beliefs.

Moses therefore threw in his lot with the oppressed minority of Jews, reinforced their identity by insisting both on monotheism and the Abrahamic rite of circumcision, and finally instituted the Exodus, leading the Jews out of Egypt to discover the land long since promised to the forefathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Although the Bible states that Moses died at the age of 120, Freud preferred to believe that Moses was murdered by his people, relying for evidence on a suggestion made by Ernst Sellin. [Anthony Storr, 1989]

From Édouard Schuré, we learn, going back via both Philo and Strabo, both of whom cite Manetho (Manethon) regarding the real personage of Moses, who (according to Manetho), was Hosarsiph, son of the royal priestess who herself was sister to Pharaoh Rameses II. Hosarsiph was first cousin of Menephtah, whose father was Rameses II. While Memephtah was instructed in the cult of Ammon-Ra at Memphis (Noph), Hosarsiph was dedicated to Isis and Osiris by his mother, and trained in sacred knowledge, He had been dubbed "the silent one," so intense and almost quiet was he. Often he stammered while speaking, he appeared shy till of a sudden, like a sharp thunderbolt, a terrible idea would burst forth, leaving behind it a trail of light (these words are Schuré's). Hosarsiph became an initiate in the religion of Isis, but he was destined for something greater. He became the Deliverer, the Law-Giver, of the children of Israel. We know him as Moses.

The Black Moses
Hosarsiph

Prince of Egypt

Manetho's Secret

Whatever Manetho's animus against the Hebrew people, and perhaps the Jews of Alexandria, welcomed (invited and encouraged) to settle there by a certain Greek (Or Makedonian) named Alexander the Great, Manetho seemed determined to sully their record, associating them with the invasion of the Hyksos tribesmen of Asia, and making Moses (or Hosariph.) something of a villain and ingrate. Moses, after all, had "turned against" his royal Egyptian family, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God (the outcast and enslaved Hebrews) than enjoy the pleasures of luxury and privilege (sin) for a season. In Manetho's accout, scholars say, he conflated the stories of two distinct Israelites -- Joseph (from whence Hosarsiph) and Moses. Each indeed was a Prince of Egypt. Each ultimately was loyal to his own heritage, and the faith of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. But they were the bookends, as it were, to the centuries of servitude in Egypt. The Torah concludes with the Exodus. Out of Egypt have I called my son (Israel).

Moses, the Great Voodoo Man of the Bible. Henri Gamache, the elusive adept, saw Moses as the world's first conjure man. He was imbued with holy power by G-d. Gamache (a renowned folk-magic scholar) tells us of Moses that "All across Africa and Egypt to the Sudan and thence to the Gold Coast, his influence is manifest. In Haiti, the greatest of the gods is Damballa Ouedo Ouedo Tocan Freda Dahomey who is none other than Moses himself." (Related: see Henri Gamache's manual of holistic magic remedies (herbal and root cures)

Moses, Man of the Mountain

Zora Neale Hurston says that Moses was the first man who ever learned God's power-compelling words and it took him forty years to learn ten words. (See the TEN WORDS.) So he made ten plagues and ten commandments. But God gave him His rod for a present and showed him the back part of His glory. Then too, Moses could walk out of the sight of man (Hurston, Mules and Men). Hurston reminds us that Moses is African, and she sees his people as African-Americans. (Freud, for one, advanced the theory that Moses was Egyptian in articles that he wrote for the journal, Imago, in 1937). Hurston emphasizes Moses' role as the great conjurer, the "power doctor" of humankind. Also for consultation on this general theme, please see New World Witchery -- the Search for American Traditional Witchcraft (Blog Post 77, August 6, 2010)

We are told that there arose not another Prophet like unto Moses (until the Promised one should come -- of Deuteronomy 18:18). The rabbis taught that a messianic King would rise up from King David's progeny with wisdom greater than Solomon and a prophetic stature approximating that of Moses himself. Moses knew God fact to face. Alone among all scriptures, the Torah was dictated by God verbally to Moses. It was to Moses that the Holy One identified himself as Ehyeh asher ehyeh.

The Two Moses

The Jewish tradition honors Moses very highly, elevating his writings (the Torah) above all the other Hebrew Scriptures. But a second Moses appeared in Jewish history, Moses Maimonides. RamBam, they call him, and the saying goes, From Moses to Moses there was none like Moses. Maimonides wrote in the Arabic language of his native Spain, and he (like the first Moses) is revered greatly within the Jewish tradition. David ben Gurion even learned Arabic in order to study the great RamBam in the original.

Did Moses have two wives, or was Zipporah exceptionally beautiful? We know that Zipporah, Moses wife, was a Midianite, yet when Miriam brought up her charge against Moses in Numbers 1:21 (Bamidbar), it was because of his Ethiopian (Cushite) wife. It appears from Targum Onkelos that Zipporah, not a second wife, is referred to in the Bamidbar passage. The Aramaic word used to interpret "Cushitic" here is shapirto. Zipporah was exceptionally beautiful. Miriam's (and Aaron's) sin against Moses was both rebellion and Lashon Hara (evil tongue, defamation).
From Gretchen A. Shapiro in her class from Rabbi Moshe Berger; Also see Michael Wex (on Rashi's commentary).

Exodus 34:30 says "All the children of Israel saw Moses and the skin of his face shone," translated in the Vulgate, "Cornuta esset facies sua." The explanation of this enigma is as follows. Rays of light were called horns. Hence in Habakkuk (3:4) we read of God, "His brightness was as the light, and He had horns [rays of light] coming out of His hand." Michel Angelo depicted Moses with horns, following the Vulgate. E. Cobham Brewer

Jewish tradition has always held Moses in the highest estimation, as also it holds the Torah. Within the Spanish Kabbalist tradition there is a rather surprising distinction accorded to Moses. Gershom Scholem explains: "Of Moses the man of God, of him and him alone is it said in a striking phrase that he had intercourse with the Shekhinah." Thus, the Zohar invokes sexual symbolism to elucidate the mystical doctrine of the Kabbala.

The Torah was given publicly and openly, in a place to which no one had any claim. Had it been given in the land of Israel, the nations of the world could have said "We have no portion in it." Therefore it was given in the wilderness, publicly and openly, in a place to which no one had any claim. Everyone who desires to accept, let him come and accept it. [Mekhilta, Bahodesh, 1; quoted by Arthur Hertzberg]

The church has a past it does not know. A cruel trick of history, Christianity has been ripped from its Hebraic and Hamitic roots, and turned into a European thing. But being European, it does not know its beginnings. Nietzsche wrote: "Christianity can be understood only in terms of the soil out of which it grew -- it is not counter-movement to the Jewish instinct, it is its very consequence, one inference more in its awe-inspiring logic." See Ripped from its origins web page.

Ripped from his own family and people, thrust into an alien, though privileged, cultural milieu, Moses surely suffered in the way many orphans, or even just foster children, may suffer. Yet often times, God can wring good out of evil {MLK, jr]. There is even an idea which the playwright Thornton Wilder expressed. "I am convinced that, except in a few extraordinary cases, one form or another of an unhappy childhood is essential to the formation of exceptional gifts."

Judaism teaches about the "kiss of God" (Meitah be-nesikah in Hebrew or mise binishike in Yiddish). This refers to death directly at the hands of God (or the Shekhinah):

The concept arises from the death of Moses, where it is said he died al peh Adonai, "at God's command," but literally "by God's mouth" (Deut. 34). This easiest of all deaths circumvents the dreaded Angel of Death. According to the Sages, only six people have died this way: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Miriam, Aaron, and Moses (B.B. 17a; S of S R. 1:2; Tanh., Va-Etchanan). In later Jewish mystical writings, a number of kabbalistic masters die in ecstasy via the "kiss" (Zohar III: 144b; Sha'ar ha-Gilgulim 39). Jewish mysticism also equated the "kiss" with devekut, mystical fusion with God (Zohar II: 53a).

His Name Is Moses :: prince of Egypt

The Jews -- so often liberal