Moses and the Torah of Noticing

Tending the flock of his father-in-law Jethro: It was necessary to state that he was a shepherd because the majority of prophets receive their prophecy while shepherding. Prophecy requires solitude.... By these means, his thoughts will (be preoccupied with) the emergence of God, may God be blessed, until he is (spiritually) awakened by Heaven and the spirit of G-d. This won't happen if he dwells in his house or if he does work other than in the field. It only happens for the shepherd who has a lot of unoccupied time.

The vision of the burning bush appeared to Moses alone; the other shepherds with him saw nothing of it. He took five steps in the direction of the bush, to view it at close range, and when Gd beheld the countenance of Moses distorted by grief and anxiety over Israel's suffering, He spoke, "This one is worthy of the office of pasturing My people."

It begins with Moses turning aside to see this wonder which is the bush that is burning in fire but not consumed. And so that first moment of turning aside from your straight path, receives attention in the midrashic tradition that it’s a certain quality of the spirit that allows him to move away from the straight and narrow, as it were, from his own concerns, and to simply to notice an anomaly in the world and to look for meaning in it.

The text says, Moses ‘saw, and look, the bush was burning with fire and the bush was not consumed. ‘ Now, this takes place in wilderness....And this wilderness Moses wanders with his sheep is huge and empty, so there is no need to put it out for fear of wider fire, just steer clear of it.

But Moses doesn’t steer clear, he looks; long enough to see that the bush is not only burning, but it is not consumed. And the text says, ‘ And Moses thought, “Let me, pray, turn aside that I may see this great sight, why the bush does not burn up.’” This bush is clearly none of his business, out of his way, but he just has to turn aside and look at it. And that reveals something deep about the man. He is a seeker, not just a seeker after justice, but a man seeking his destiny. He is living contentedly as a shepherd, with a loving father-in- law, a wife, a son, a nice job. He could just settle. But something is driving him to turn aside, to pay attention to oddities, possibilities, omens.... And, in the manner of this manifestation, appearing as a burning bush, God is also revealed as one who appears not only in high drama, but also sets subtle signs for us. Most of God’s appearances are in dramatic forms with big production values -- a pillar of fire or on a mountain top in lightning and clouds. But here, Rashi points out, God is manifest in a bush, the humblest of plants – just a lousy little bush in the wilderness … burning. It took someone special to notice it.

Moses notices, and in that noticing ignites the engine of our entire history. How many other shepherds walked that way and either missed the bush or saw it was burning but didn’t look long enough to see the miraculous in it?