(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 the LORD 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 the LORD saw that he had turned aside to look, God called to him out of the bush: “Moses! Moses!” He answered, “Here I am.” (5) And He said, “Do not come closer. Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you stand is holy ground. (6) I am,” He said, “the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.
Questions:
1. In your own words, what is happening in this story?
2. How does Moses realize that he is witnessing a miracle?
3. What is Moses's reaction to the miracle?
4. Why do you think that God speaks to Moses from a burning bush?
Aryeh Bernstein, JewSchool
Fugitive Moses is tending his sheep, when an unusual thing catches his eye: “He gazed, and there was a bush, all aflame, yet the bush was not consumed. Moses said, ‘I must turn aside to look at this marvelous sight; why doesn’t the bush burn up?’Although the reader already knows that this is a sign from God (v. 1), Moses does not. He just thinks it’s interesting. We see unusual things all the time, but how often do we pay attention to them? More often, we ignore them, explain them away, or feel too busy tending our sheep to investigate. Had Moses not been driven by a need to understand, he never would have had the chance to hear God’s voice. Note the language: “When Adonai saw that he had turned aside to look, God called to him” (v. 4). It is Moses’s expression of intellectual curiosity that justifies calling him and giving him the job. Strategizing within the well-defined parameters of the task at hand does not cut it: one must be constantly studying the entire world; after all, the source for solving the greatest national problems might lie in an unusual, small bush.
Rabbi Abraham Jacob of Sadgora
The Rabbi of Sadgora once said to his disciples, "We can learn something from everything: we may learn not only from things God has created, but also from the creations of humans." One of his students asked, "What can one learn from a train?" "That because of one second a person can miss everything," he said. "And from the telegraph?" "That every word is counted and charged." "And from the telephone?" "That what we say here," the rabbi responded, "is heard there."
Discussion Question:
How do these texts relate to the work we are doing today or in general as part of the Central Service Corps?