The Torah tells us precious little about Moshe’s first eighty years, before he was assigned the role of leader of our nation. It shares with us only a few isolated episodes about his life, without going into any sort of detail to explain how he ended being the greatest prophet and leader who ever lived.
Another curious thing about Moshe is his name. Our Sages tell us that Moshe actually had seven names, including names that have in them the Name of G-d, such as “Yekutiel” and “Shemayah.” And yet, he is known by the name “Moshe,” which means “drawn from the water” (מן המים משיתיהו). Is this not peculiar? Does it make sense that Moshe Rabbenu, the leader who brought us out of Egypt, delivered plagues upon the most powerful empire on earth, split the sea, and brought us the Torah from the heavens, is named “drawn from the water”?
Biased Nonbelievers
Rav Elhanan Wasserman, one of the great European sages who perished during the Holocaust, addresses in his writings a basic question about Jewish faith that has, undoubtedly, weighed on all of our minds at one point or another, in one form or another. That question is, why do we discount the view of the vast majority of people in the world, who do not believe in our religion? Only a very small percentage of people accept our belief in a G-d who created the world, chose the Jewish People and gave them the Torah. Many, many brilliant people outright deny our core beliefs. Why, then, do we not follow the majority view? The Torah itself tells us to accept the majority view on matters of dispute. So why do we not accept the majority position, that our religious beliefs are wrong?
Rav Elhanan answers that Jewish law requires following the majority view among those who take an objective, unbiased position, and most of those who reject the belief in G-d are not objective.
People deny the existence of a Creator who holds people accountable for their conduct because they do not want there to be a Creator who holds people accountable. Denying this belief allows them to do what they want, to live as they wish, without responsibilities, obligations and restrictions. It’s much easier living this way than living with a sense of responsibility and accountability. And so people refuse to accept our belief.
Something similar to this phenomenon can be found in Parashat Shemot. The Torah tells that a new king “who did not know Yosef” arose and ruled over Egypt, and this was the Pharaoh who enslaved Beneh Yisrael. How, the Rabbis ask, was it possible for an Egyptian king to not have known about Yosef, and what Yosef did for the country? This would be akin to somebody becoming President of the United States who never heard of Abraham Lincoln. After all, Yosef saved the country from hunger, and turned it into the wealthiest nation on earth. How could any king not know about him?
The answer, the Rabbis explain, is that the new king did not want to know about Yosef. He did not want to feel beholden to Yosef, indebted to him for his service to Egypt. The new king did not want to have to treat Yosef’s people kindly, and so he feigned ignorance about Yosef. He pretended not to know and not to remember anything about him.
People do the same thing with G-d. The belief that there is a G-d who created everything, who controls everything, who gives us our very lives, and everything we have and own, is simply too overwhelming. It makes us indebted and accountable, and people want to feel free. So they deny G-d’s existence, thereby allowing themselves to act as they wish without any obligation or accountability for their actions.
Significantly, as the Rabbis point out, the same Pharaoh who “did not know Yosef” would later say to Moshe, “I do not know G-d” when he refused to obey G-d’s command to release Beneh Yisrael. When people refuse to acknowledge their debt of gratitude to other people, they end up refusing to acknowledge G-d. It’s the same mentality – the unwillingness to feel indebted, responsible and accountable. If we don’t take time to think about how much people have done for us, then we won’t take time to think about how much G-d has done for us, and then we won’t feel accountable to Him.
This analysis leads us to a very important, and far-reaching, conclusion. It might sound overstated, but it’s not: gratitude is the core essence of Judaism. The heart of Jewish belief is acknowledging where we came from, that we owe our existence and everything we have to somebody; that there is a G-d who created us, parents who produced us, many different people who contributed to the effort of raising and educating us, and countless individuals to whom we owe a debt of gratitude. Judaism teaches us that we have responsibilities and obligations because we were brought here and brought to this point in our lives by G-d and by many different people – all for a purpose. And so it is no exaggeration to say that appreciation lies at the very heart of Judaism.
What We Know About Moshe
As mentioned, the Torah tells us very little about Moshe’s first eighty years. But what the Torah does tell us all revolves around this concept – the notion of acknowledging where we came from and feeling grateful. Consider the following:
· His name: Moshe had several names, but he insisted on being called Moshe, the name given to him by Pharaoh’s daughter when she rescued him from the water. He wanted to ensure that throughout his entire life, he would always remember that he owed his survival to that woman, who drew him from the water and raised him.
· וירא בסבלותם: Moshe grew up in Pharaoh’s palace, and so he was absolved from the slave labor that the rest of Beneh Yisrael were forced to perform. Nevertheless, he left the palace in order to see their suffering and feel their pain. He did not allow himself to just move on after being lucky enough to have been raised as an Egyptian prince. He reflected upon his origins, and realized that he has responsibilities as part of the Jewish Nation.
· איש מצרי הצילנו: Moshe was forced to flee Egypt after killing an Egyptian taskmaster who beat a Jewish slave, and he arrived in Midyan, where he saw a group of young women – Yitro’s daughters – being harassed by shepherds at a well. He promptly chased away the shepherds, rescuing the girls. When they returned home, the girls told their father, איש מצרי הצילנו מיד הרועים – “An Egyptian man rescued us from the shepherd.” The Rabbis explained that Moshe told the girls that they needed to thank not him, but “an Egyptian man” – Pharaoh, who was trying to kill him. It was because of Pharaoh that Moshe was forced to flee Egypt, and was thus in a position to rescue these girls from the violent shepherds of Midyan. Moshe was always looking back, acknowledging his origins, remembering his past, and giving credit to those people and events which brought him to where he was.
· “I have to ask my father-in-law”: After G-d appeared to Moshe and commanded him to return to Egypt and lead Beneh Yisrael to freedom, Moshe told G-d that he could not go before receiving his father-in-law’s permission. Sons-in-law are not known for their eagerness to get their fathers-in-law’s advice or permission, and yet Moshe would not agree to the most important mission in history, which was assigned to him explicitly by G-d in a prophetic vision, before asking his father-in-law. Moshe correctly noted that he owed everything to Yitro. He was a poor, homeless fugitive, and Yitro welcomed him into his home and had him marry his daughter and work for him. Moshe felt indebted to Yitro, and refused to leave his home without his permission.
· Showing appreciation to water and dirt: The Rabbis comment that Moshe refused to bring about the first three plagues – blood, frogs and vermin – because the first two required striking the river with his stick, and the third required striking the earth with his stick. Moshe felt indebted to the water, which rescued him from Pharaoh’s edict when he was an infant, as well as to the earth, which he used to conceal the taskmaster’s remains after killing him. Many decades had passed since Moshe was helped by the river and by the earth, yet he still remembered this debt of gratitude. Once again, we see Moshe as a person who always looked back on his origins, on all those people and even inanimate objects that helped him.
Moshe Rabbenu, who gave us the Torah, is portrayed as a man of appreciation, of indebtedness, of responsibility. This is because appreciation is the core essence of Judaism. Our religion does not get off the ground without this quality, without reflecting on how we got here and our obligations to those who helped get us here. This is where it starts.
I believe it is no coincidence that our age of entitlement is also an age of widespread atheism and rejection of religion. People today feel they deserve everything they have, and that they also deserve a lot that they don’t have. Parents spend fortunes on family vacations which end up being “complainathons,” with kids whining instead of expressing gratitude. We live in an age when people demand a great deal from others and very little from themselves. Not surprisingly, religion is also in sharp decline. Religion is about appreciating and recognizing obligation. It’s about the realization that our lives and everything we have has been given to us undeservedly so that we can fulfill our obligations in life. If we feel entitled, then we don’t feel responsible to anyone. And thus an age of entitlement naturally becomes an age when religion is rejected.
Appreciation is not just a “nice thing.” It is integral to Judaism. We cannot begin to live as Jews without this quality, without recognizing and appreciating all that is done for us, because if we don’t, then we feel no sense of indebtedness to G-d or to our fellow man.
“Thanks for Dinner, Honey”
Let’s see how this gratitude mindset, and the absence of this mindset, play themselves out in real life.
A man comes home after a long day at work, and soon sits down to a nice dinner which his wife prepared. Assuming he’s a good husband, he thanks his wife after the meal: “Thanks for dinner, Honey.”
We can imagine the wife feeling, on the one hand, gratified that her husband thanked her, but on the other hand, frustrated by how simple and brief this expression of gratitude was. He has no idea what was involved in this dinner getting prepared and making its way onto the table. The wife had to shop, find parking, wait on line, schlep all the bags, put everything away, peel, slice, fry, mix, bake and set the table, all while answering the phone, paying bills, doing laundry, greeting the kids when they came home from school, breaking up fights, helping out with homework, and doing a zillion other things that the husband knows nothing about.
After all that, he just says, “Thanks for dinner”?!
Now let’s shift to the husband’s perspective. When he comes home, his wife asks, “How was your day in the office?” to which he responds with something to the effect of, “Ok,” or “So, so,” or “A bit rough,” or “Not so easy.” He might think to himself, “She goes shopping and expects the money to be there. Does she have any idea what I have to go through to earn a livelihood?” He has to fight through traffic in both directions, he has to put up with difficult or unpleasant people in the office, the boss’ wild mood swings, orders that didn’t come in, meetings, appointments, phone calls, stress, aggravation, pressure and hard work. And she just asks, “How was your day”?!
Nether the husband nor the wife is being selfish. It’s just the way people are, particularly in today’s pressured, fast-paced world. We are so stressed out and focused on getting things done, on moving forward and getting through our never-ending “to do” list, that we simply don’t have time to sit back and reflect upon all the things people do for us every day. Our spouse, our children, our parents, our siblings, our neighbors, our friends, our fellow congregants, our coworkers, our associates – there are so many people who contribute to our lives, who helped us in the past and help us now in the present. We have trouble recognizing it all because we are so frantic and rushed in our efforts to get more done.
One of the famous models of appreciation is Rabbi Akiva, the great sage who, with is wife’s support and encouragement, spent 24 years away from home focused on his studies, over the course of which he became one of the greatest Torah scholars in Jewish history. When he returned, his wife came to see him, but his students, who did not recognize her, started pushing her away. Rabbi Akiva told his students to leave her alone, explaining, “My Torah and your Torah is to her credit.” He understood that he could not achieve all that he achieved alone, without people helping and supporting him. His wife deserved every bit as much credit as he did for his accomplishments as a scholar, and Rabbi Akiva acknowledged her role. This is critical to living as a Jew – appreciating all those who enabled and enable us to live, to have what we have and to do what we do.
A Key to Happiness
Appreciation is critical not only for life as a Jew, but also for life generally.
A number of different studies have been conducted on the subject of happiness, trying to identify the various factors that contribute to happiness or the lack of happiness. Perhaps the most exhaustive study was conducted over a 75-year period by a series of teams of professors at Harvard University. They studied inner city youth in Boston and then followed them for the next 75 years.
After analyzing the thousands upon thousands of pages’ worth of data, the researchers concluded that the single most important factor for a happy life is healthy relationships. They found that for the most part, the people who are the happiest and who live the longest are those who have strong, healthy relationships. Having healthy relationships does not mean that one never fights and never has stress. But it means that one has strong, meaningful bonds with other people – a spouse, children, parents, friends, and community members.
Simple logic dictates that a healthy relationship is impossible without appreciation. People who work hard for others desperately seek appreciation. They need to know that their efforts and devotion are recognized and appreciated. Children respond positively to their parents when they feel appreciated by them. Husbands and wives respond positively to one another when they feel appreciated by them. And this is true of all people. For any relationship to thrive, the parties need to feel appreciated by each other.
This is especially true in our day and age. People today are more stressed and overburdened than ever before. We do not, thank goodness, suffer the kind of backbreaking physical labor that our ancestors experienced in Egypt. We do, however, suffer the same kind of emotional “slavery” as they did. People today are constantly on the run, constantly tired, anxious, pressured and run down. And this makes appreciation all the more vital in relationships. People who exert themselves for other despite the zillions of things they need to get done desperately need to feel that their work and sacrifices are appreciated. Now more than ever, when we are all under constant pressure, we need to show appreciation to those who invest extra effort for us. Otherwise, resentment will build and shatter the relationships.
If we want happiness, we need to build and maintain healthy relationships. And if we want to build and maintain healthy relationships, we need to be appreciative.
Appreciation also makes us forgiving. If we acknowledge and feel grateful for all that another person does for us, we are far more likely to forgive the occasional mistake or hurtful remark.
Not surprisingly, we learn this from none other than Moshe Rabbenu.
We read in Sefer Bamidbar the story of Miriam, Moshe Rabbenu’s sister, who, in a momentary lapse, spoke inappropriately about him. She made an insulting remark, criticizing something he did, and Hashem punished her with tzara’at (leprosy). The Torah tells that the entire nation waited for Miriam to be cured before moving on to continue their journey to Eretz Yisrael. For seven days, the nation stood in place, not budging, waiting for Miriam. The Rabbis explain that Moshe had the people wait for Miriam because 80 years earlier, when he was an infant floating in a basket down the river, she waited by the riverbank, watching him. As an 80-year-old leader of Am Yisrael, who brought plagues on Egypt and brought the Torah from the heavens, Moshe Rabbenu still remembered what Miriam did for him when he was an infant. And so he showed her respect even when she said something disrespectful about him. Whatever offensive remark she made paled in comparison to the great act of kindness she performed watching over him when he was helpless floating in the river. And this is a lesson for us, as well. If we acknowledge all that our family members, friends and other people in our lives do for us, we will recognize that it far surpasses the rare insulting or annoying remarks they make, or their occasional mistakes which make us upset. And thus appreciation is crucial for healthy, stable relationships – which are themselves a vital necessity for a happy life.
Appreciation on Display in the Airport
An inspiring example of true, meaningful appreciation is a story that made the news of a well-known Orthodox Jewish philanthropist.
Shlomo Yehuda Rechnitz, a businessman from Los Angeles who is renowned for his generosity, was once in an airport in Ireland waiting for a connecting flight. In the airport, he saw a large group of U.S. soldiers who were on their way home. He watched as the troops sat on the floor and ate from their lunch bags.
The scene did not seem quite right to Mr. Rechnitz. These troops, he thought to himself, devote themselves to protect Americans. He reflected on the fact that he was able to build a business and go about his life only because of their work and sacrifices. Was it right that while the other travelers sat comfortably at restaurants in the terminal enjoying large meals, these soldiers – to whom we all owe so much – were eating sandwiches out of their lunch bags?
Mr. Rechnitz went over to the general and said that he wanted each and every soldier to order a $50 meal from a restaurant on his account. There were 400 soldiers – for a total of $20,000.
As the soldiers enjoyed their free meals, Mr. Rechnitz gave a short, impromptu speech, thanking them for their service to the country and expressing his joy over the opportunity to show his appreciation.
This is somebody who understands what appreciation is, who, like Moshe Rabbenu, thinks about and reflects on all those people who help us live and do what we do. And this quality is so vital for Torah life, as it is what allows us to recognize Hashem and commit ourselves to fulfilling our obligations to Him.
Kids & Appreciation
Given the vital importance of appreciation for Torah life, it goes without saying that it is crucially important to educate our children to feel gratitude. As difficult as it is in today’s age of entitlement, when youth, in particular, feel they are owed everything and owe nothing, we must try to instill within our youngsters this essential Jewish value of appreciation and indebtedness.
As any parent knows, however, there is an inherent problem in trying to teach kids appreciation. The people whom they should be appreciating the most are, of course, us, the parents. But whenever we tell our children that they should appreciate what we do for them, what they hear – legitimately – is their parents looking out for themselves, for their own ego. They don’t think of it as a lesson in gratitude as much as their parents being petty and selfish, demanding appreciation and respect.
I believe that modern technology has come up with a wonderful solution for this problem. It’s called text messaging. Many children feel awkward speaking in an open, emotional manner with their parents directly, but are far more likely to express themselves sincerely through the medium of texting. This is a great way for parents to express their respect and appreciation for their children, and the children are likely to reciprocate – far more so than they are in person. A short, carefully-written message to our youngsters is a great way to open the appreciation lines in both directions, thus building stronger bonds between us and them.
Pharaoh “did not know” Yosef, and then ended up saying that he “did not know” Hashem. Let us ensure to reflect on all that we’ve received from other people, all that the people around us do for us, and we will then train ourselves to feel sincere gratitude to Hashem for all He does for us, and we will be inspired to serve Him devotedly throughout our lives.