“Go up to the top of the hill and lift up your eyes westward and northward and southward and eastward and see with your eyes, for you shall not cross this Yarden.” (Devarim 3:27)
The Midrash quotes Moshe saying to Hashem, “The bones of Yosef will enter Eretz Yisrael, but I can’t?”
Hashem answered, “He who acknowledges his homeland will be buried in his homeland, and he who doesn’t acknowledge his homeland will not be buried there.”
Yosef acknowledged his homeland while in Mitzrayim, when he said, “For I was stolen from the land of the Ivrim” (Bereishis 40:15).
In contrast, when the daughters of Yisro told him (Shemos 2:19), “An Egyptian man rescued us from the hand of the shepherds,” Moshe didn’t correct them and say that he was Jewish. (Rav Shimon Schwab, Maayan Bais Hashoeivah)
There’s something about transcontinental travel that makes you feel that you’re not just flying the friendly skies, but are simply flying. It’s a time period of transience, as if I’m a free-floating entity, untethered to location, community, or even continent. Anonymous and incognito. It’s liberating, yet frightening.
The allegation against Moshe seems confusing. Moshe miraculously fled Mitzrayim, where no slave ever managed to escape, by disguising himself as an Egyptian. If he’d admit he was Jewish, he’d be putting himself in terrible danger, especially since Yisro was an advisor to Pharaoh!
The Shulchan Aruch (Yoreh Dei’ah 157:2) discusses this type of scenario. It’s forbidden for a person to say he’s an idol worshipper to spare his life, but he’s allowed to appear as a non-Jew if his life is in danger. So what did Moshe do wrong?
This past summer I flew to the States with a stopover in Rome. I’m not an adventurous traveler, not interested in sightseeing or grabbing some shopping while in transit. In fact, being a history buff and having an overactive imagination, I often dread making connections in cities that represent to me Jewish persecution and exile.
Landing in Rome prompted unwelcome thoughts of Titus, of shackled slaves, and of being within a stone’s throw of the Vatican. But the airport was innocuous enough and since I had a very long layover, I checked into the lounge hoping to get some sleep.
The Midrash (Bereishis Rabbah) discusses two students of Rabi Yehoshua who disguised themselves as non-Jews at a time of persecution.
An officer met them and said, “If you’re bnei Torah, then you should be giving up your life for it. And if not, then why should you die for it?”
We see from here that if a person’s a ben Torah, even if it causes him a certain amount of danger, he should want to be moser nefesh and be open about his identity.
The lounge was packed with travelers from all around the globe, and I wandered until I found an unoccupied chair.
