In this week's Parshah we are introduced to a character that has a special role throughout the rest of Chumash: The staff of Moses!
Hashem said to him, “What is that in your hand?” He said, “A rod.”
This special stick is also called the Staff of G-d.
וַיִּקַּ֨ח מֹשֶׁ֜ה אֶת־אִשְׁתּ֣וֹ וְאֶת־בָּנָ֗יו וַיַּרְכִּבֵם֙ עַֽל־הַחֲמֹ֔ר וַיָּ֖שָׁב אַ֣רְצָה מִצְרָ֑יִם וַיִּקַּ֥ח מֹשֶׁ֛ה אֶת־מַטֵּ֥ה הָאֱלֹהִ֖ים בְּיָדֽוֹ׃
So Moses took his wife and sons, mounted them on a donkey, and went back to the land of Egypt; and Moses took the rod of God with him.
According to Sforno, it was just an ordinary stick which G-d made special by allowing Moshe to perform miracles with it.
ואת המטה הזה, even though this staff is not made from a particularly valuable type of wood I have sanctified it to serve as a sign for you.
Other commentaries, on the other hand, cite various midrashim to show that the stick was made of sapphire and had things engraved on it.
לֵךְ וְהִפָּרַע מִמֶּנּוּ, אָמַר לוֹ הֵיאַךְ אָבִיא עָלָיו עֶשֶׂר מַכּוֹת, אָמַר לוֹ (שמות ד, יז): וְאֶת הַמַּטֶּה הַזֶּה תִּקַּח בְּיָדֶךָ. אָמַר רַבִּי יְהוּדָה הַמַּטֶּה מִשְׁקַל אַרְבָּעִים סְאָה הָיָה וְשֶׁל סְנַפְּרִינוּן הָיָה, וְעֶשֶׂר מַכּוֹת חֲקוּקוֹת עָלָיו נוֹטָרִיקוֹן, דצ"ך, עד"ש, באח"ב. אָמַר לוֹ הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא בַּטַכְסִיס הַזֶּה הָבֵא עָלָיו אֶת הַמַּכּוֹת.
‘Go and exact retribution from him’ – he said to Him: ‘How will I bring upon him ten plagues?’ He said to him: “You shall take in your hand this staff” (Exodus 4:17). Rabbi Yehuda said: The weight of the staff was forty se’a, and it was made of sapphire, and the ten plagues were etched on it in acronym form, detzakh adash be’aḥav. The Holy One blessed be He said to him: ‘In this order, bring the plagues upon him.’
Besides for being physically unique, other sources describe the staff as having some unique abilities.
“If they do not believe you, and they do not listen to the voice of the first sign; then they will believe the voice of the latter sign.
Many commentaries discuss what the "voice" of the sign means. Some suggest that Moshe only told the children of Israel about the miracles Hashem did. The following midrash offers a different possibility.
והיה אם לא יאמינו לקול האות הראשון מה תלמוד לומר לקול. אמר ריש לקיש שהיה המטה מדבר לפני ישראל עם משה הייתי במדין ונהפכתי לנחש ואחר כך נעשיתי מטה...
"If they do not believe you, and they do not listen to the voice of the first sign..." What does "to the voice" teach? Reish Lakish said that the stick spoke before the people of Israel, saying "I was with Moshe in Midian, and I turned into a snake, and then afterwards I turned [back] into a stick"...
Talking stick!
ואת המטה הזה תקח בידך אמר לו הקב"ה משה אם אין אתה רוצה לעשות את שליחותי מקל זה עושה שליחותי אלא אני רוצה לזכותך...
"Take this rod in your hand" (Shemos 4:17) HaKadosh Baruch Hu said to Moshe "if you don't want to fulfill my mission, this stick will fulfill my mission, but I want you to have the merit."
So instead of Moses, our leader could have been a talking stick!
Ok, so this was clearly an impressive stick. But where did it come from? What's the stick's origin story?
According to Pirkei Avos, the stick was created at the very end of the six days of creation. Pirkei D'Rabbi Eliezer gives us more details about its chain of custody and how it got to Moshe.
ר' לוי אומר, אותו המטה שנברא בין השמשות נמסר לאדם הראשון מגן עדן, ואדם מסרו לחנוך, וחנוך מסרו לנח, ונח לשם, ושם מסרו לאברהם, ואברהם ליצחק, ויצחק ליעקב, ויעקב הוריד אותו למצרים, ומסרו ליוסף בנו. כשמת יוסף ושללו ביתו, נתנה בפלטרין של פרעה, והיה יתרו אחד מחרטומי מצרים, וראה את המטה ואת האותות אשר עליו, וחמד אותו בלבו, ולקחו והביאו ונטעו בתוך הגן של ביתו, ולא היה אדם יכול לקרב אליו עוד.
כשבא משה לתוך ביתו, נכנס לגן ביתו של יתרו וראה את המטה וקרא את האותות אשר עליו ושלף ידו ולקחו וראה יתרו למשה ואמר זה עתיד לגאול את ישראל ממצרים לפיכך נתן לו את צפורה בתו לאשה, שנ' ויואל משה לשבת את האיש.
Rabbi Levi said: That rod which was created in the twilight was delivered to the first man out of the garden of Eden. Adam delivered it to Enoch, and Enoch delivered it to Noah, and Noah [handed it on] to Shem. Shem passed it on to Abraham, Abraham to Isaac, and Isaac to Jacob, and Jacob brought it down into Egypt and passed it on to his son Joseph, and when Joseph died and they pillaged his household goods, it was placed in the palace of Pharaoh. And Jethro was one of the magicians of Egypt, and he saw the rod and the letters which were upon it, and he desired in his heart (to have it), and he took it and brought it, and planted it in the midst of the garden of his house. No one was able to approach it any more.
When Moses came to his house he went into the garden of Jethro's house, and saw the rod and read the letters which were upon it, and he put forth his hand and took it. Jethro watched Moses, and said: This one in the future will redeem Israel from Egypt. Therefore he gave him Zipporah his daughter to wife, as it is said, "And Moses was content to dwell with the man; and he gave Moses Zipporah, his daughter" (Ex. 2:21).
Yalkut Shimoni has a similar account but gives us a little more detail about that last part.
ויהי אחרי מות יוסף וישבו שרי מצרים בית יוסף ויגיע המטה אל יד רעואל המדיני ובעת צאתו ממצרים לקחו בידו ויטעהו בתוך גנתו. ויבחנו כל גבורי קיני לתלשו בבקשם לקחת צפורה בתו ולא יכלו וישאר בתוך הגן עד בוא אשר לו המשפט ויקחהו. ויהי כראות רעואל את המטה בידו ויתמה על ככה ויתן רעואל צפורה בתו למשה.
And it came to pass after the death of Joseph that the Ministers of Egypt came to Joseph’s house and the staff reached the hands of Reuel the Midianite, and when he left Egypt he took the staff and planted it in his garden. Many suitors tried to pull the staff out of the ground so that they would be able to marry Reuel’s daughter, Tzipporah. But they couldn’t and the staff stayed in the garden until someone could pull it out. So when Reuel saw the staff in Moses’ hand he was amazed and he gave his daughter Tzipporah to Moses.
So, the stick was stuck in the ground, and many people tried to take it out but nobody could do it, until Moshe pulled it from the ground, at which point it was clear that he was destined to be the leader of the Jewish people. Sound familiar? The legend of King Arthur contains some very familiar elements (the sword in the stone). It should be noted that Pirkei D'Rabbi Eliezer is based on the teachings of R' Eliezer who lived in the 2nd century, while the primary text on King Arthur, Historia Regum Britanniae was written in 1136 (with various isolated appearances of King Arthur dating back to the 700s).
While the legend of King Arthur is not a part of Jewish tradition, there is a Hebrew translation of a few stories of "Melech Artus" written in 1279. The author spends a lot of time explaining why it was ok for him to have written this translation.
מלר ארטוש
זה ספר השמד הטבלה העגולה של המלך ארטוש ואני העתקיו בשנת ט"ל לפרט מלשון לעז אל לשון עברי... והשתדלתי בהעתקת אלה השיחות לשתי סיבות גדולות הראשונה היתה על דרך שמירת בריאות גופי כי בעונותיי רבו צרותיי...ויראתי פן אפול בחולי השחורה שהוא חולי השטות אשר טוב ממנו המוות. ולכן העתקתי לעצמי אלה השיחות כדי להעביר בהם זמני הרע בקצת העתים ולהפיס דעתי ולהפיג צערי...
...הסיבה השנית אל העתקתי והיא הנכבדת היתה כי בתכלית שלזה הספר ילמדו החוטאים דרכי התשובה ויזכרו אחריתם וישובו אל השם כמו שתראה ודיי בהתנצלותי זה אצל כל חכם מודה על האמת בלתי מקשה עצמו לדעת.
Melech Artus
This is the book of the destruction of King Artus' Round Table. I translated it in the year 5039 (1279) from the vernacular into Hebrew... And I have undertaken this translation for two weighty reasons. First, I wished to preserve my bodily health. For through my sins have I met with troubles...and I was afraid lest I fall a prey to melancholy, which is to lose my reason, than which death is better. Therefore have I translated those tales for my own pastime, and to drive away the thoughts which encompass me, and to soften my grief...
...Another and more important reason for my translation has been, that the sinners might learn from it the way of repentance and think of their end and return to Hashem, as you will see at the end of the story. To the man who admits the truth and has an open mind, who is not obstinate or refuses to learn, I think I have stated sufficiently the reason for my action.
As noted above, the existence of this translation doesn't make king Arthur part of Jewish Tradition (and the only copy of it in existence is sitting in the Vatican). It also doesn't seem to be presented as history here, but as a good story. Especially because the author likens it to the fox fables taught by R' Meir.
But even though the legends of the round table and Excalibur don't show up in any Jewish sources, one familiar name does...
וראיתי בקרוניקי שהשטן נתלבש בצורת איש ושמש עם אשה כותית ותהר לו ותלד איש ויקראו מרלין והיה חכם גדול (שה"ק דק"ט סע"א). וביוחסין מאמר ה' זמן ז' בימי ליאון היה החכם הגדול מירלון באינגלטירא ואמרו שהיה בן שד ואמו היתה בת מלך פרושה ועשה ספרים הרבה ומת ליאון שנת תע"ו...
I saw in a history book that the Satan enclothed himself in the form of a man and had relations with a Christian woman and she became pregnant and gave birth to a man named Merlin, and he was a great scholar (Shalsheles Hakabbalah p.109). And in Sefer Yuchsin [it says]: "In the days of Leo I there was a great scholar, Mirlon, in England, and it is said that he was the son of a gremlin and his mother was a princess and a nun, and he wrote many books. And Leo I died in the [Gregorian] year 476."...
Merlin! Seder Hadoros quotes from two different 16th century Jewish history texts that mention the existence of a half-gremlin scholar named Merlin who lived around the 5th century (which seems to line up with the timing wikipedia mentions for the personalities on which Merlin is based).
Ok, back to the stick. We mentioned earlier that it had the ten plagues engraved on it. Other sources mention it having other things engraved on it. Targum Yonasan pulls it all together and gives us the full list of everything that was engraved on the stick.
And Mosheh stretched out his hand over the sea, with the great and glorious rod which was created at the beginning, and on which were engraven and set forth the Great and Glorious Name, and the ten signs which had smitten the Mizraee, and the three fathers of the world, and the six mothers, and the twelve tribes of Jakob: and straightway the Lord brought a vehement east wind upon the sea all night, and made the sea dry; and divided the waters into twelve divisions according to the twelve tribes of Jacob.
"The six matriarchs" is an interesting phrase. Usually we only count 4 (Sarah, Rivkah, Rochel and Leah, to the exclusion of Bilhah and Zilpah).
The Sages taught in a baraita: One may only call three people patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but not Jacob’s children. And one may only call four people matriarchs, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah. The Gemara asks: What is the reason for this exclusivity with regard to the Patriarchs? If you say that it is because we do not know whether we descend from Reuben or from Simon, so we cannot accurately say our father Reuben, for example, if so, with regard to the Matriarchs as well, we do not know whether we descend from Rachel or from Leah, and we should not call Rachel and Leah matriarchs either. Instead, the reason the sons of Jacob are not called patriarchs is not for that reason, but because until Jacob they are significant enough to be referred to as patriarchs, but beyond Jacob, they are not significant enough to be referred to as patriarchs.
See? There should only be 4! The Lubavitcher Rebbe explains something we can learn from this.
ליקוטי שיחות, ח' ו,ע' 305
ואף שלכאורה עבודה פרטית היא עבודה נמוכה, כי הכלל הוא, כלשון הגמ' בהנוגע לאבות חשיבי מהפרט - ממטה משה רבנו למדים אנו אשר לא כן הוא. באותו מטה היו חקוקות בו השש אמהות והי"ב שבטים, עד גם להעשר מכות שהיא עבודה נמוכה עוד יותר, במצרים ערות הארץ, ובאותו המטה עצמו דוקא הי' חקוק גם שמא רבא, שהוא שם המיוחד מכל הז' שמות שאין נמחקים, שם העצם. כי העצם ישנו בכל הפרטים, עד גם לפרט היותר נמוך, וכנ"ל שכשאתה תופס במקצת העצם אתה תופס בכולו.
Likutei Sichos vol. 6, p. 305
Seemingly, individualized service is a lowly type of service, because that which has a comprehensive significance is, in the language of the Talmud, more important than a specific detail. But from the staff of Moshe we learn that this is not the case. On that stick were engraved the six matriarchs and the twelve tribes, and even the ten plagues, which are an even lower form of service, connected with Egypt, "the nakedness of the land" (Genesis 42:9). And on that same stick was also engraved the "Great Name," which is unique among the divine names as it is the name which refers to the essence [of G-d]. Because the essence contains all of the specific parts within in, even the lowest parts, and when one grasps part of the essence, one grasps the all of it.