Calling Out & Being Called: Rabbinic Origin Stories of Faith & Response

(1) God said to Abram, “Go forth from your native land and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you. (2) I will make of you a great nation, And I will bless you; I will make your name great, And you shall be a blessing.

(1) God said to Abram, "Go you forth from your land…" Rabbi Yitzchak began, "Take heed, lass, and note, incline your ear: forget your people and your father’s house," (Psalm 45:11). Rabbi Yitzchak said: this may be compared to a person who was traveling from place to place when he saw a castle in flames. He said, "Is it possible that this castle lacks a person to look after it?" The owner of the castle looked out and said, “I am the owner of the castle.” Similarly, because Abraham our father said, “Is it possible that this castle has no guide, no one to look after it?," the Holy Blessed One looked out and said to him, “I am the Master of the Universe.” "So shall the king desire your beauty," to make you glorious in the world. "For he is your God, do homage unto him." (Psalm 45:12). Hence, God said to Abraham, Lech Lecha.

(1) Now Moses, tending the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian, drove the flock into the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. (2) An angel of God appeared to him in a blazing fire out of a bush. He gazed, and there was a bush all aflame, yet the bush was not consumed. (3) Moses said, “I must turn aside to look at this marvelous sight; why doesn’t the bush burn up?” (4) When God saw that he had turned aside to look, God called to him out of the bush: “Moses! Moses!” He answered, “Here I am.”

..You find that when the texts writes Abraham, Abraham (Genesis 22:11), there is a division between the two names; Jacob, Jacob (Genesis 46:2), there is a division; Samuel, Samuel (1 Samuel 3:10), there is a division; but in the case of Moses there is no division. Why is this? It is like the case of a person who was carrying a heavy burden and called out: ‘Here, So-and-so, So-and-so, come and take this load from me!’

(1) God called to Moses and spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting, saying:

You find that when the Holy One revealed God's-self to Moses from the midst of the thorn bush, the latter hid his face from God as it is said, “And Moses hid his face…” (Exodus 3:6). Because of this, the Holy One said to him, “Come now therefore and I will send you unto Pharaoh (Exodus 3:10). R. Eleazer said,: The letter “hey” at the end of the word (“Come” “Lecha”) signifies, ‘If you will not deliver them, no one else will deliver them.’ At the Red Seas he [i.e. Moses] stood aside, and the Holy One said to him, “Lift you up your rod and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it, (Exodus 14:15) as much as to say: ‘If you will not divide it, no one else will divide it.’ At Sinai, too, Moses stood aside; and G-d said to him, “Come up unto the Lord, you “ (Exodus 24:1) as if to say: ‘If you will not come up, no one else will come up.’ In the Tent of Meeting he stood aside, but the Holy One said: ‘Until when will you keep yourself low? The hour waits but for you!’ you have proof that this is so, for out of them all the divine word called none but Moses [as it is written], “Vayikra el Moshe…”