Elstree & Borehamwood Masorti’s Beginnings

It’s great to stay with our Shlicha Reli and her husband Yoel. They are extremely hospitable, and I appreciate learning a bit about their families.

The new Masorti congregation here has a monthly shiur and the theme appropriately enough is Beginnings. We take a number of passages from the Torah and stop to focus on the start of Moses’ journey.

We look at one of my favourite verses. Moses grew up and he went out to his brothers, and he felt for their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian man smite a Hebrew man of his brothers. We puzzle over Ibn Ezra’s comment that the first brothers are the Egyptians. So at the beginning of the verse Moses perceives himself as Egyptian. After all he’s adopted into the palace and who knows if anyone told him anything about the secret of his birth, but by the time he comes home that day his brothers have become the Hebrews. Michael Gluckman comments “so his journey that day was one of transformation. He finds his identity in discovering his values”. Maybe that’s what marks the true beginning of our journey: when we know who and what we care for.