Moses - Reluctant Magician

(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. (7) And the LORD continued, “I have marked well the plight of My people in Egypt and have heeded their outcry because of their taskmasters; yes, I am mindful of their sufferings. (8) I have come down to rescue them from the Egyptians and to bring them out of that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey, the region of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. (9) Now the cry of the Israelites has reached Me; moreover, I have seen how the Egyptians oppress them. (10) Come, therefore, I will send you to Pharaoh, and you shall free My people, the Israelites, from Egypt.” (11) But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and free the Israelites from Egypt?” (12) And He said, “I will be with you; that shall be your sign that it was I who sent you. And when you have freed the people from Egypt, you shall worship God at this mountain.” (13) Moses said to God, “When I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?” (14) And God said to Moses, “Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh.” He continued, “Thus shall you say to the Israelites, ‘Ehyeh sent me to you.’” (15) And God said further to Moses, “Thus shall you speak to the Israelites: The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you:
This shall be My name forever,
This My appellation for all eternity. (16) “Go and assemble the elders of Israel and say to them: the LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, has appeared to me and said, ‘I have taken note of you and of what is being done to you in Egypt, (17) and I have declared: I will take you out of the misery of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, to a land flowing with milk and honey.’ (18) They will listen to you; then you shall go with the elders of Israel to the king of Egypt and you shall say to him, ‘The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, manifested Himself to us. Now therefore, let us go a distance of three days into the wilderness to sacrifice to the LORD our God.’ (19) Yet I know that the king of Egypt will let you go only because of a greater might. (20) So I will stretch out My hand and smite Egypt with various wonders which I will work upon them; after that he shall let you go. (21) And I will dispose the Egyptians favorably toward this people, so that when you go, you will not go away empty-handed. (22) Each woman shall borrow from her neighbor and the lodger in her house objects of silver and gold, and clothing, and you shall put these on your sons and daughters, thus stripping the Egyptians.”

וזה AND THIS — i. e. the sight which thou hast witnessed in the bush, לך האות כי אנכי שלחתיך SHALL BE A SIGN UNTO THEE, BECAUSE (כי) “I” HAVE SENT THEE and “I” am competent to save: just as thou hast seen the bush carrying out the mission I laid upon it and it was not consumed, so go thou too on the mission I entrust to thee and thou shalt suffer no harm. ...

Another explanation is: כי אהיה עמך FOR I WILL BE WITH THEE and thou wilt therefore succeed, וזה AND THIS — viz., the fact that thou wilt succeed in thy mission לך האות WILL BE A SIGN UNTO THEE with respect to another promise: for I promise thee that when thou hast brought them forth from Egypt ye will serve Me upon this mountain — i. e. that ye will receive the Torah upon it. This is the merit which is an advocate for Israel. An exactly similar use of the word אות, where something that will happen in the future is to serve as an אות in regard to an event that will transpire in the more distant future we find elsewhere: (Isaiah 27:30.) “And this shall be a sign unto thee — for ye shall eat this year that which groweth of itself etc.” (the passage proceeds to state that after a few years the devastated land will have regained its former fertility) — this, i. e, the fall of Sennacherib promised in the preceding section of that chapter shall be a sign to thee in respect to another promise: for your land is now barren of fruits, but I will bless that which grows of itself and the land shall bring forth fruits in abundance.

Thus in that which he saw, there was a sign for Moses that he should not fear Pharaoh since G-d assured him his deliverance. For Israel it was to be a sign that they should not fear the nations upon their coming to Mount Sinai, for to go out from Egypt — with Pharaoh’s consent — to a nearby place a three days’ journey, they would surely give heed and do so whether willingly or unwillingly.
By way of the Truth, [the mystic lore of the Cabala], ‘V’zeh’ (And this) shall be the token unto thee, is like the verse, ‘Zeh li’ (I have now been) twenty years in thy house, thus alluding to the verses, Because I will be with thee, and behold there is a sign unto thee, the sign of the covenant that “I will be with thee always,” just as it is intimated in the verse, As for Me, behold, My covenant is with thee. “It is I who send you that you should serve G-d upon this mountain, and then I too will go up in the midst of this people into the place which I have prepared.”

(6) Ten things were created on the eve of the Sabbath at twilight, and these are they: [1] the mouth of the earth, [2] the mouth of the well, [3] the mouth of the donkey, [4] the rainbow, [5] the manna, [6] the staff [of Moses], [7] the shamir, [8] the letters, [9] the writing, [10] and the tablets. And some say: also the demons, the grave of Moses, and the ram of Abraham, our father. And some say: and also tongs, made with tongs.

(10) Whereupon the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up with Korah—when that band died, when the fire consumed the two hundred and fifty men—and they became an example.

(1) Some time afterward, God put Abraham to the test. He said to him, “Abraham,” and he answered, “Here I am.”

(3) With ten trials was Abraham, our father (may he rest in peace), tried, and he withstood them all; to make known how great was the love of Abraham, our father (peace be upon him).

(4) Ten miracles were wrought for our ancestors in Egypt, and ten at the sea. Ten plagues did the Holy one, blessed be He, bring upon the Egyptians in Egypt and ten at the sea. [With] ten trials did our ancestors try God, blessed be He, as it is said, “and they have tried Me these ten times and they have not listened to my voice” (Numbers 14:22).

(9) “And this shall serve you as a sign on your hand and as a reminder on your forehead—in order that the Teaching of the LORD may be in your mouth—that with a mighty hand the LORD freed you from Egypt.

(13) Speak to the Israelite people and say: Nevertheless, you must keep My sabbaths, for this is a sign between Me and you throughout the ages, that you may know that I the LORD have consecrated you.

(21) And the LORD said to Moses, “When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the marvels that I have put within your power. I, however, will stiffen his heart so that he will not let the people go.

(10) So Moses and Aaron came before Pharaoh and did just as the LORD had commanded: Aaron cast down his rod in the presence of Pharaoh and his courtiers, and it turned into a serpent. (11) Then Pharaoh, for his part, summoned the wise men and the sorcerers; and the Egyptian magicians, in turn, did the same with their spells; (12) each cast down his rod, and they turned into serpents. But Aaron’s rod swallowed their rods.

(9) When you enter the land that the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not learn to imitate the abhorrent practices of those nations. (10) Let no one be found among you who consigns his son or daughter to the fire, or who is an augur, a soothsayer, a diviner, a sorcerer, (11) one who casts spells, or one who consults ghosts or familiar spirits, or one who inquires of the dead. (12) For anyone who does such things is abhorrent to the LORD, and it is because of these abhorrent things that the LORD your God is dispossessing them before you. (13) You must be wholehearted with the LORD your God. (14) Those nations that you are about to dispossess do indeed resort to soothsayers and augurs; to you, however, the LORD your God has not assigned the like. (15) The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet from among your own people, like myself; him you shall heed.

The baraita relates an incident illustrating this point. There was an incident involving ben Dama, son of Rabbi Yishmael’s sister, in which a snake bit him. And following the attack, Ya’akov of the village of Sekhanya, who was a heretic, a disciple of Jesus the Nazarene, came to treat him, but Rabbi Yishmael did not let him do so. And ben Dama said to him: Rabbi Yishmael, my brother, let him treat me, and I will be healed by him. And I will cite a verse from the Torah to prove that accepting medical treatment from a heretic is permitted in this situation. But ben Dama did not manage to complete the statement before his soul departed from his body and he died. (see continuation below)