Moshe grew into a position of responsibility. He became ready to minister to the needs of his people. Horav Zeev Weinberger, Shlita, feels that Moshe had two distinct goals in mind when he began to serve Klal Yisrael: His first objective was to expunge the evil that the Egyptian environment had engendered. Second, he sought to correct and bring back the Jewish People. The occurrences related in the pesukim on the two days that Moshe “went out” to his brethren demonstrate these two faci.
On the first day, Moshe encountered an Egyptian beating a Jew. He immediately “corrected” the problem, as he smote the Egyptian. Purging the evil would not be that difficult. Raising Klal Yisrael from the depths, imbuing them with a sense of kedushah and taharah, charging them with their mission on this earth, created a greater challenge. The very next day, Moshe went out and encountered two Jews fighting with one another. If the actual discord between two brothers was not bad enough, the reaction of the one who was striking the other demonstrated to Moshe how far they had strayed. One individual challenged Moshe. He rudely and disdainfully said, “Who appointed you as a ruler over us? Are you going to slay me as you slew the Egyptian?” This was none other than Moshe’s nemesis, Dasan, the man whom he had saved the day before from the murderous blows of the Egyptian! When Moshe realized the nadir of evil which this remark represented, he understood how difficult it would be to bring the Jewish People to the spiritual plateau necessary to merit their liberation.
To fully comprehend the profoundity of Moshe’s concern, Horav Weinberger explains that when Moshe saw that there were Jews who had no conpunction about informing on another Jew, who would go to the Egyptian authorities and endanger the lives of others, he was filled with apprehension. There is nothing as low as an informer who would deliver another Jew to the gentiles. In his commentary, the Arizal explains the words of the Haggadah, “anus al pi haDibbur,” compelled by Divine decree. Regarding the decree that Klal Yisrael be relegated to galus Mitzrayim, exiled in Egypt, he interprets the word “dibbur” as “speech.” The exile was a result Bnei Yisrael’s defective speech. They used their G-d given power of speech to distort, disparage, and inform on other Jews. Thus, the redemption of Pesach, which is an acronym for “peh-sach,” the mouth speaks, occurred because Klal Yisrael corrected their speech by elevating and sanctifying the words which came out of their mouths. This grave concern caused Moshe to flee Egypt. He perceived that on his own, his success would be negligible.
Horav Weinberg takes another approach towards explaining Moshe’s two encounters and his initial response. The Midrash seems to view these two encounters as sharing a single motif. When Moshe went out and saw the intensity of Jewish suffering – to the point that an Egyptian had no qualms about publicly beating a Jew, he reacted by killing the Egyptian. The next day he went out and saw two Jews fighting with each other. A lesser person would have reacted passively. He would have quieted the two so that the Egyptians would not take advantage of knowing that the Jews were not getting along with each other. Moshe did not react this way. He was a leader who did not shy away from controversy. He did what he had to do regardless of how unpopular it might be. The obligation to rebuke, to reproach when a wrong is committed, transcends social acceptance, be it from the gentiles or even from our own people. Unfortunately, the prevalent attitude that existed then seems to plague us to this very day.
