How Obama became black, by David Maraniss
In one letter to Alex [his then-girlfriend], [Obama] told her that it seemed all his Pakistani friends were headed toward the business world, and his old high school buddies from Honolulu were “moving toward the mainstream.” Where did that leave him?
“I must admit large dollops of envy for both groups,” he wrote. “Caught without a class, a structure, or tradition to support me, in a sense the choice to take a different path is made for me . . . the only way to assuage my feelings of isolation are to absorb all the traditions [of all the] classes; make them mine, me theirs.”
Here, at age 22, was an idea that would become a key to understanding Obama the politician and public figure. Without a class meant that he was entering his adult life without financial security. Without a structure meant he had grown up lacking a solid family foundation, his father gone from the start, his mother often elsewhere, all leading to a sense of being a rootless outsider. Without a tradition was a reference to his lack of religious grounding and his hapa [half and half] status, white and black, feeling completely at home in neither race.
The different path he saw for himself was to rise above the divisions. To make a particular choice would limit him, he wrote to Alex, because “taken separately, they are unacceptable and untenable.”
Questions for Exodus 2:1-15
1. How do the events of the first months of Moses' life set up a future identity crisis?
2. How did Pharaoh's daughter know he was a Hebrew child?
3. At what point in this passage do you think Moses began to identify as an/with the Israelite(s)?
(כז) ויהי בימים ההם ויגדל משה - בן עשרים שנה היה משה באותה שעה, ויש אומרים בן ארבעים.
ויגדל משה- וכי אין הכל גדלים?! אלא לומר לך, שהיה גדל שלא כדרך כל העולם.
ויצא אל אחיו שתי יציאות יצא אותו צדיק, וכתבן הקדוש ברוך הוא זו אחר זו. ויצא ביום השני, הרי שתים.
וירא בסבלותם- מהו ויראה? שהיה רואה בסבלותם ובוכה ואומר: חבל לי עליכם, מי יתן מותי עליכם, שאין לך מלאכה קשה ממלאכת הטיט, והיה נותן כתפיו ומסיע לכל אחד ואחד מהן.
רבי אלעזר בנו של רבי יוסי הגליגי אומר: ראה משוי גדול על קטן, ומשוי קטן על גדול, ומשוי איש על אשה, ומשוי אשה על איש, ומשוי זקן על בחור, ומשוי בחור על זקן, והיה מניח דרגון שלו והולך ומישב להם סבלותיהם, ועושה כאלו מסיע לפרעה. אמר הקדוש ברוך הוא: אתה הנחת עסקיך והלכת לראות בצערן של ישראל, ונהגת בהן מנהג אחים, אני מניח את העליונים ואת התחתונים, ואדבר עמך. הדא הוא דכתיב (שמות ג, ד): וירא ה' כי סר לראות, ראה הקדוש ברוך הוא במשה, שסר מעסקיו לראות בסבלותם, לפיכך (שם שם, שם): ויקרא אליו אלהים מתוך הסנה:
(27) And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown up (Exodus 2:11). Moses was 20 years old at the time, and some say 40 years old.
"When Moses was grown up" - and does not everyone grow up? [Why does the Torah bother to mention this?] Rather, this tells you that he grew up [in a manner] unlike everyone else.
"He went out unto his brethren." This righteous man went out [of the palace precisely] two times, and the Holy Blessed One wrote them one after another. "And he went out the second day" (Exodus 2:13)--that's the second one.
"And [he] looked on their burdens." What is, "And [he] looked?" For he would look upon their burdens and cry and say, "Woe is me unto you! Who will provide my death instead of yours! For there is no more difficult labor than the labor of the mortar." And he would give of his shoulders [i.e. use his shoulders to] assist each one of them.
Rabbi Eliezer the son of Rabbi Yose the Galilean said: [If] he saw a large burden on a small person and a small burden on a large person, or a man's burden on a woman and a woman's burden on a man, or an elderly man's burden on a young man and a young man's burden on an elderly man, he would leave aside his rank and go and correct their burdens, but act as though he were assisting Pharaoh. The Holy One Blessed is He said: You left aside your business and went to see the sorrow of Israel, and acted toward them as brothers act. I will leave aside the upper and the lower [i.e. ignore the distinction between Heaven and Earth] and talk to you. Such is it written, " And when the LORD saw that [Moses] turned aside to see" (Exodus 3:4). The Holy Blessed One saw Moses, who left aside his business to see their burdens. Therefore, "God called unto him out of the midst of the bush" (ibid.).
1. How do each of these midrashim add to our picture of this period of Moses' life?
2. In these midrashim, does Moses identify more as an Israelite or as an Egyptian? How does he make use of both aspects of his identity?
(ג) ומחשבות השם עמקו... אולי סבב השם זה שיגדל משה בבית המלכות להיות נפשו על מדרגה העליונה בדרך הלימוד והרגילות, ולא תהיה שפלה ורגילה להיות בבית עבדים. הלא תראה שהרג המצרי בעבור שהוא עשה חמס. והושיע בנות מדין מהרועים בעבור שהיו עושים חמס, להשקות צאנן מהמים שדלו.
ועוד דבר אחר. כי אלו היה גדל בין אחיו ויכירוהו מנעוריו, לא היו יראים ממנו כי יחשבוהו כאחד מהם
God's designs are subtle indeed... it may well be that God arranged the whole affair so as to have Moses grow up in the palace, at a high intellectual level, rather than in the debased environment of a slave. After all, he killed the Egyptian because he acted with violence, and saved the daughters of Midian from the shepherds who acted violently, so that they could water their flocks from their meager water.
Moreover, had Moses grown up among his fellows and they knew him since his youth, they would not have revered him because they would have considered him one of them.
1. How did Moses use his unusual background as an asset in his leadership?
2. Compare and contrast Obama and Moses in this respect.