Why was Moshe called Moshe?! | Shemot 5785

From the name of Moshe, we learn one of the most profound ideas of what Jewish life and leadership is all about – from his name given to him by the daughter of Pharaoh.

His name should not have been “Moshe”, it should have been the passive “Mashui” or “Nimshe” – the one who was drawn out. After all, she gives him the name Moshe “because I drew him out of the water.” But he was the one passively being drawn out the water, while she was actively drawing him out. Why is he called “the one who is drawing out”?

The Chizkuni and the Sforno say that his name is given not about what was done to him but because of what he will do. He will be the one to draw the Jewish people out of Egypt, because the same action done to him, he will then pay it forward and do the same to the Jewish people. Sometimes in life, we are stuck as passive participants who can’t change our reality. The daughter of Pharaoh could have said the same – her father introduced the decree against the Jewish people, but she defied her father, saved the child who would become the savior of the Jewish people.

Written by Professor Daniel Goldhagen, “Hitler’s Willing Executioners” deals with the theory that the average German didn’t have a choice but had to go along with the powerful regime. Absolutely not, says Goldhagen. They were not forced, they chose to do it. They were willing executioners. Those who hide behind H@mas and claim they are being forced – it is because they are proactive supporters.

We don’t go with the flow, we decide where the current is going. Moshe chose to leave the safety of Pharaoh’s court and be there for his people – risking his life for them. Every one of us can make a difference – we should be the one who proactively decides which way the current goes.

We need to do everything we can to make the biggest difference we can as proactive protagonists, not passive participants.