I have spent part of my life writing torot, which tell the stories and give the laws and state the commandments that, I pray, will stand for all time. Just as I stood at Mt. Sinai, and God spoke to me and I spoke His words to the people, so I have written down an account of everything that has happened and everything that has been transmitted to me. Someday, all the torot will become one Torah and will be the light for our people’s path.

But what I have attempted to keep out of those torot is what I have experienced and what I have felt and how I have reacted.  This has been intentional; I am but a vessel of the LORD. Though many, including my jealous cousin Korah and his followers, and the Reubenites, and my own sister and brother, have said that I have taken too much on myself, and thought too much of myself, I have never thought or acted in this way. When I experienced the power of God, I knew immediately that I am a mere mortal, a mere vessel. I may not have always acted with humility before others, but I have always been humble before God.

Still, I am a human like every other human, and I am not above feeling every emotion one can feel, including love, glory and triumph, but also crushing disappointment, humiliation, and loneliness.

It is that personal part of my life that I want to write down, though I do not intend to share this with anyone. Indeed, since I am older than I ever expected to be, I am concerned that I will forget some or all of these things, and I do want to remember them as I think about my life.

I will start with my first memory. I am two or three years old, and my mother is bringing me to the palace. I am terrified, and I do not understand why my mother is saying that I will have a new mother and a new home. She is not crying, but I am. She is saying that this has to be, and that she believes that I will grow up to be a great man who, she says, will save my family. This makes no sense to me. The princess is very kind, and shows me my new home, and it is beautiful and grand. But what I sense, even on that day, even while I am being showered with care and gifts, is that I will always be alone, and that I will never truly belong anywhere.

How could I have understood that by being of both worlds, the world of poverty and slavery, and the world of riches and power, I would be the only one who could speak to both peoples? And how could I have known that by being alone, I would be able to hear the Voice of the God? For He is alone, too.

My mother might have pretended that she did not know who I was, and everyone went along with the pretense, including Pharaoh, and while I was a child, there was no problem. But I felt that there was a Horus-eye on me as I got older.

Everything would have been all right, except something was welling inside me. And when I went out of the environs of the palace to see how the Hebrew slaves were being treated, and I saw a taskmaster beating one of them to death, I could not contain myself. I thought that no one was looking, and I killed him, and buried him in the sand. I thought: The slave I saved, who slid away, would never tell anyone, and despite my royal clothes, would not know my name. Looking back, this was naïve of me. Just as the palace knew who I was, the Hebrews always knew about one of them who was being raised in the Great House. So when I went out again, and saw two Hebrews fighting, and tried to intercede, they rudely shouted, “Will you kill us like you killed the taskmaster?” I knew that my secret was out. I was right about Pharaoh’s suspicions. Pharaoh did not summon me to listen to an explanation; he sent his men to kill me, and I fled.

As I ran out into the desert, at one of the lowest points of my life, I understood that I was neither Hebrew nor Egyptian, that I had no identity. I was welcomed into a Kenite’s household, married the leader’s oldest daughter, became a shepherd. I was safe; I was a husband, then a father; I had a home.

I thought that this would be my life, and I thought I was content.

But then came the moment that changed my life. I have thought about it a thousand times, and I still believe that I heard the Voice. I had never heard it before. It sounded like my voice, but somehow grander and deeper. More than the fact that the bush was on fire but did not burn up, it was what the Voice said that was astonishing. I was not meant to be a shepherd of desert sheep. Somewhere inside me, I knew this, but I tried to ignore that voice inside me, and when I heard that I was to return to Egypt, I was not surprised.

No, that was not the incredible part of what the Voice said. The astonishing part was that the Voice said that just as I had to achieve the destiny set by my miraculous survival as an infant, He had to change how He had related to His people. He could no longer remain at a distance, watching. When I would go to Egypt, I would not be alone as I had been when I left. We were to become what we were to become, together.

The Burning Bush has been an image seared into my mind, but at the time, despite my certainty that I had been called, and that the Becoming One was the god of my Hebrew ancestors, and that He would be with me when I went back to Egypt – with all that, I was deathly afraid.

Even after that experience on the mountain, I was not sure I would go. He had to call me through a miracle just to get my mind moving in the right direction. When I came home to my wife and two sons, especially the infant, I remained reluctant. It was only when I learned that the Pharaoh who sought to kill me was dead that I set out with my family.

Again, identity was front of mind. I was an Israelite, then an Egyptian, then a Midianite shepherd. I was careful about revealing too much, lest the Pharaoh’s spies heard something in the desert wind. So, I did not circumcise my sons, in order to keep my identity quiet.

But the Becoming One knows all, and when we were at an inn on the way back to Egypt, He struck me with some terrible illness which put me near death, though I cannot remember any of the details. Tzipporah told me, and not a few times, that she understood why I had been punished, and circumcised my son, placing the foreskin on me and calling me a Bridegroom of Blood, warding off the evil, re-asserting my Hebrew identity, but making her own attitudes very clear.

Why would this act be so necessary? Since Abraham, the covenant of fertility had been fulfilled on both sides, with the Divine making our people so fertile that even the killing of infants and enslavement could not deter our astonishing growth, and the Hebrew circumcising their sons. How could I go back to lead the circumcised Hebrews with an uncircumcised son? The Becoming One had said that Israel would be his first-born son, but that the first-born sons of the Egyptians would die, but not the Israelite first-born, so I have imagined that my son had to be clearly marked so that he would be redeemed.

That bizarre night convinced Tzipporah to take the two boys back to her father and the sheep, while I went on to Egypt, convinced by a miracle and a near death experience who I was and who I was becoming. 

I returned to Egypt, frightened in three different ways.

Would I be able to fulfill what God had made my mission, to free the Israelites from slavery in Egypt? It seemed like the most impossible of tasks.

When I would confront the Pharaoh and demand the Israelites’ freedom, would he imprison me? Kill me?

Would the Israelites accept me as their leader? I still had the Israelite man’s words ringing in my ears: “Who made you our master?”

I kept thinking about the bush that did not burn up, and I summoned my courage.

Things went all right with the Israelites at first, but when I went to Pharaoh, things went very badly. All I asked for was a three-day religious holiday. But in response to my demands, Pharaoh increased the burden on the Israelites. Previously, the Israelites had made bricks using straw, which helped bind the clay. Pharaoh ordered that they would no longer be given straw, yet they must produce the same number of bricks as before. The Israelites were forced to gather straw themselves, making their labor even more exhausting and impossible. This was an intentionally cruel demand that created an even more unjust and impossible situation.   

The Israelites were beaten when quotas were not met.

The people accosted me, blaming me for their increased suffering.

Desperate, I pleaded with God to help his people.

Looking back, I know that Pharaoh’s refusal to ease the Israelites’ burden set the stage for the ten plagues and the eventual Exodus.

But at the time, it was a terrible moment in my life. I felt that all three of my fears had been realized. I was unable to fulfill my mission. Pharaoh responded with cynicism and cruelty. I had made the lives of the Israelites harder, not better, and they were justifiably angry with my leadership.

I think sometimes about bricks without straw. It describes a task that is difficult to complete because we have not been given the essential materials.

I think now that, at that time, I was a brick without straw. I did not have what I needed to perform my task. I was lost in the moment. This happens to all of us at many times in our lives; we cannot see beyond the emotion of the present. I had the courage, but not the faith that my mission could come to reality. God had to provide the straw, so I could do His Will.

For the people, the idea of a miracle is simple: God performs something that is supernatural. But for me, the things that I have witnessed are complex. I have had more experiences of the miraculous, I venture to say, than any human being who has ever lived. But after all of them, I still wonder about the wonders.

Without the plagues, the Exodus never would have happened. But why did there need to be so many? When I was still in Midian, God had told me what would happen. Pharaoh would not let the people leave Egypt until Pharaoh himself lost his firstborn son. That was a prophecy of the last of the plagues. So why, I asked myself: Why did God need to send the other nine, the blood, the frogs, and so on? I think there are two answers. Pharoah had to have the opportunity to let us go before the most destructive plagues.

But more, the plagues were designed to convince a depressed and cynical people about the possibility of miracles. They had been oppressed and beaten, physically and emotionally, for so long. One miracle, even one of incredible power, could be explained away, as something natural rather than supernatural. But one after another, each one predicted by me before it happened, each one a response to Pharoah’s refusals, became an education in hope, a process of convincing the people that there was a pathway to freedom.

Eventually, the people began to lift their heads. With each plague, they looked to the sky. They needed all those plagues to be able to see a different kind of future than they had ever dreamed of.

While the people now accept the evidence of their eyes, I still wonder about the wonders I have seen. Perhaps all the things that happened were natural things that happened at just the right time.

My faith includes my doubts. My faith is stronger because I test it with my doubts. But even with my doubts, I am inspired by the possibility of miracles.

There are already legends about our Exodus from Egypt, and some say that we left in the middle of the night. They say that was the night of the Last Plague, the Death of the First-Born Sons.  Indeed, that plague broke Pharaoh, at least momentarily; he called me in and told us to be gone.

But we did not leave that night; we left the next morning. And as we marched out of the city, we saw the Egyptians burying their dead sons.

One might think that we marched in triumph, having vanquished those who has killed our baby boys, who had enslaved us, who had beaten and oppressed us.

But there is no joy, even in triumph over evil, when human beings suffer the worst possible losses. Evil people had done all those horrible things to us, but even the execution of pure justice is still execution; even the righteous balancing of the scales weighs heavily on our hearts.

The cost of fighting evil, even in the most righteous of causes, is what one is forced to do, to respond to violence with violence. In this case, our hands did not wield swords; we killed no one ourselves.

Yes, we sang at the Sea when the waters parted for us and drowned our pursuers.

Yes, we thanked God for the miracles that saved us.

But no, we did not emerge from all these events the same as before.

We mourn when our fellow-humans suffer. no matter what the circumstances.

This means that our humanity is still intact.

In the greatest moment, perhaps not just of my life but the life of my people, is when I stood on a boulder and raised my rod and God made the sea part. Over these years, so many people have told me that they will always remember seeing me stand there, as they walked through the sea dry shod with the pillars of water on both sides. And how when they got to the other side and we saw the Egyptian chariots coming, the sea closed on them, and they drowned.

Yet my keenest memory of that event was not standing there on the boulder. It was seeing the first man enter the sea-parted ground. That nameless man was a greater hero than me. For who could be sure that the waters would remain parted? How could he know that it was not just a momentary lull, or the retreating of a tidal wave that had caused the ground to appear?

I just had to stand there with my upraised arm, hoping that God would perform the greatest miracle of them all, That nameless was the one who had true courage. He put his life where his faith was.

I think about this kind of thing a great deal, that we leaders get all the accolades and fame, but we are not the soldiers on the front line. We say pious blessings after the birth of children, but we are not the ones who experience the pain and dangers of childbirth.

In my mind’s eye, I see that man who was the first one to walk into the sea. He, not I, was the true leader.

How shall we make the bitter sweet, or the sweet bitter?

It was just three days later after the greatest miracle. We came to an oasis where the water was bitter. The people cried out for water.  They forgot at that moment, as they would forget at so many moments, what God had done for them. He took them out of slavery; He'd given them their freedom after hundreds of years of slavery. He'd rescued them from the mightiest human power on earth. He'd sent plagues, one after the other, to show them that these were not just natural occurrences but supernatural events. He took them out of Egypt with a pillar of cloud guiding them during the day and a pillar of fire to guide them at night. And most of all, just three days before this, He’d taken them through the sea dry shod. They stood on the other shore, and they watched the Egyptians drowning, and they saw their bodies lying on the seashore, just as they'd seen the firstborn sons being buried as they marched out of Egypt.

 And yet after all that, after seeing more miracles than any generation of any people that ever lived, after all that, they came to a place and the water was bitter. And they cried out in anger, as if none of those things had ever happened. And so God told me to take a stick and throw it in the water. I have no idea how, but the waters became sweet, and the people drank. And so for a moment they drank the water that God had provided, but how long would that last? Not very long at all. At every moment that demanded patience, they had no patience. At every moment when they could have had faith, they had no faith, despite all the reasons they should have had faith.  

Every person in their life has the choice whether to take a stick and to make the bitter sweet, or to grouse at the waters of their own frustration and make everything bitter. At all such moments, people should think with gratitude that they're alive. They should think about the things that have gone right not just the things that have gone wrong. Perhaps gratitude is the stick that could make the water, the bitter water, sweet.

I am not sure how I could have thought that we could journey to Mt. Sinai and then to Canaan without being attacked. Then again, even though now there are stories that I was once Pharaoh’s general, just as supposedly I was a powerful prince, I had no experience of war. So, when I heard screams and shouts that we were being attacked in the rear, where the sick and elderly were trailing, going slowly at their own speed, I could not think and had no idea what to do. But I told Joshua to gather the men, and the next day I went to the top of the hill where I could see the battlefield. I lifted my arms to attack and to remind them of the miracles that they associated with me lifting my arm or rod, and everything went well. But then when I finally lowered my arms, the enemy started to win. I could only stand there for so long, so they put a rock under me so that I could sit, and Aaron and Hur help my arms up, until we had defeated the enemy.

It is a legend now, but I know that my arms hold no magical power. What was powerful was that the men thought that my raised arms, as if in prayer to God (which I had not meant in that way), were powerful. Perhaps God took my arms to be in prayer, and performed another miracle, something supernatural. And indeed, that is how the story is told.

But an even better story, an even better lesson, is that belief is its own fulfillment. It sounds like something you would tell a child, that if they think they can do something, they can.

Yet in my mind, I saw the men, gaining and re-gaining strength, from something I had not meant to do. I am nothing; I did not even have the strength to keep my arms up! So who am I, or who is a parent or a teacher or a leader, other than someone who is there to encourage? All of us, including me, do not believe enough in ourselves and our capabilities. We need someone else to sit there on the hill, with arms uplifted, to give us courage when our own courage fails us.

When I think about my experiences on Mt. Sinai, and I think about them every day for one reason or another, it is both a blur and a clear vision. People want to understand what I experienced. All I can do is explain that, at that time, I saw two structures, the vision for the structure of the Tabernacle, and the vision for the structure of the society. At this moment, I am thinking about one of the earlier visions, that of the civil laws, by which the people should live with each other. For all of the laws about God and rituals, those rituals are meant to make time meaningful and to point toward righteousness. But what does all that mean? It may seem strange that some of these laws from Heaven are all very down-to-earth. What happens when your enemy’s ox breaks down under its burdens? How shall you build your roof so that no one falls off? If your ox gores someone or another animal, what is your responsibility? How should you treat your servants? How should theft be punished? And so on. These laws are not original to our God or our society, because we have made changes. Each law is a case: if this happens, then this will be the consequence.

What we have brought from Mount Sinai is for the first time the idea of absolute law, not just case laws.

THOU SHALT.

THOU SHALT NOT.

And the laws are not just ordered by a king, but from the Divine Order, higher than any king. No one ever suggested that I would be their king. We have seen what kings do, and we know that no human being should have that kind of power. The Absolute Law is above every person and above every case and situation.

Case laws start from the earthiness of life and ascend to Heaven.

Divine laws start from Heaven and descend to the earth.

What I have asked of my people may be close to impossible.

This was my thought as I came down the mountain and saw them celebrating around the Golden Calf.

I castigated my brother Aaron for giving in and making it for them. But they would have killed him if he had not done so. And for all the punishment that I inflicted on them, I do understand that I have asked for a bigger revolt than if I had led a rebellion against Pharaoh.

I have asked them to see beyond images, which would seem to be a contradiction.

So, when they made the statue of the Golden Calf, the symbol of the dawn, the daily rising of the Sun God, they were merely continuing something that they had seen. I know that they know that the idol is not a god but a representation.

And yet I have commanded them to reject all idols, all representations. What a unique demand! What a leap I am compelling them to make!

I am asking them to see what cannot be seen and to see that the Power of the world cannot be seen or represented in any way. Of course, they would revert in a matter of days once I was out of sight and for all they knew, dead on the mountain.

And yet the Truth that I have brought them, that anything that can be represented is not worth representing, that there are no parts, only the Whole, is indeed the great revelation. Am I too far ahead of my time? Is this people, or any people, ready to believe that there is a Power, a Whole, that is beyond human sight or even imagining? This Power has no name because again, a name would be a description and therefore a limitation.

I destroyed the Golden Calf, but can I destroy the need to see?

Am I denying them the right to be human?

When I was a boy among the princes in the palace school, I was the only one that wanted to learn the lessons. The others could not bear hearing about the laws of Hatti-land, but I memorized them, in order, until they were part of me. I had no idea why.

What was it, even at that young age, that I found so stirring and compelling? They were just simple laws about what should happen if this man steals or that man kills in this or that way. Those laws were not only foreign; they were strange to our minds. Why have a law code? We assumed that all we needed was Pharaoh, who was the Law. This is why there was no code for our land.

It took years, it was not until I grew up, that I understood what was taking hold of me. They should not have taught me those laws. They should not have taught me that there was another way for people to live. They should have kept my mind enslaved to the idea that Pharaoh’s word is all that is needed.

And yet, I did not truly understand anything, because in a way, all I did at first, after we had left Egypt, was to become the law myself, sitting and judging everyone according to my word. No one thought better of it, because they did not know any other way than for one man to be the law. So I sat and settled all the disputes and arguments, no different, and no better, than if I sat on a throne.

As soon as I designated judges, who needed laws to judge by, everything that I had learned came flowing through me and became what the people thought were new laws. Borrowed or new, the laws were true, and they were the beginning.

When we left Egypt, we did not only escape slavery. We became free of the slavery to the will of one man. We must never go back.

I never really had someone who I could talk to about my true thoughts. Joshua is a great warrior, and he will win every battle, but he is not a wise thinker. Aaron is a builder of the cult, and he is devoted to it, and what he has made will stand for all time, if his descendants do as he does, preserving the cult at the expense of all principles and beliefs.

One of the reasons that I have to write these thoughts down is I have no other place to put them. No one can know my doubts and ambivalences.

One of the primary examples is my uncertainties about the cult we have made. I believe in ritual, not in its efficacy as in its power to bring the people together. They are the products of their world, and animal sacrifices are the mode of expression about the Divine. They petition and praise, seek forgiveness and insight, through sacrifices on an altar. I understand, and prescribe exact instructions in great detail, the more exact the better. How could I forego these rites when I have asked them to make the leap from idols to a God Who is not represented? There is a limit to what I can ask.

But then, if there are no statues, why do we need any kind of Dwelling? Why, I can only ask myself, do we need a Place if God is Everywhere?

The Mishkan, the Tabernacle, houses what we do have, the Ark of the Covenant with the Tablets. There must be a Place, especially in the Wilderness. There must be a Place to direct and focus their attention.

I can communicate without any thing. But they need things. And so I say that God dwells in the Tabernacle, and this is true. He dwells there, but then, where does He not?

In this manner I say: ‘We are here.’ And the important word is ‘We’.  It would do no good to have everyone praying in their own way. They must pray in the same way, to make the We.

God is everywhere, and we are Here. God is Here, wherever we are. And the people becomes a nation, as we seek the Place that will be our own.

I must envision the promise of the Promised Land before the people ever arrives there. I must see them not as wanderers but as farmers. And there is one phrase that I have been given from which I must derive laws and details: Leaving the corners of the field.” 

Here is what I have written: When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field, nor gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and for the foreigner.

And over and over, I have written: Remember that you were a stranger in a strange land.

It may seem like a detail about farming, that farmers will have an obligation to leave a portion of their produce unharvested. But the vision is that the poor, widows, orphans, and immigrants will gather food freely from those corners. Why the corners? So that no one sees them. They can come and take and leave. They can preserve their dignity by working for their sustenance rather than relying on charity. Rather than a rich person handing them something directly, this is a system where we share resources and ensure that everyone benefits from the land’s abundance. The poor are given access to food, not pity. The earth’s produce belongs ultimately to God; we are stewards, not absolute owners.

This is about human, personal dignity. 

This is about community responsibility: Everyone is accountable for ensuring no one is left hungry or excluded.

Justice is not only about laws and punishments. It also is about compassion built into our daily lives.

So that we can fulfill the promise of the Promised Land.

People ask me: Why are the Kohanim, the priests in the new cult that we have instituted, charged with healing the sick? Should they not be solely designated for the sacrificial rituals? 

My response is that the body and the spirit are not two different realms, but one and the same. Those who care for one also care for the other. Recovery from disease and illness requires strength and hope.

But more important, who else should treat the ill? Those who pretend like they know how to heal, the ignorant who traffic in pagan rites, who shout their magical incantations that are words of nonsense? We must teach that the body has its own ways, and only those who seek to know these ways should be respected as healers.

We know that disease, in its contagion, can destroy a people. We must fear it, learn to know it, try to instill daily habits that try to prevent it.

Ignorance of illness and its treatment will lead to disease. Those who pretend to know its ways, but really know nothing, are themselves a disease who will wreak havoc if they are let loose.

The health of the society depends on the health of the people. The health of the people depends on those who fear disease. This is why the priests must be the healers, and the only healers. They dismiss magic. They scorn complacency. They do not assume that the community can protect itself from disease by chanting a few words. They possess the best of the knowledge that we have, they know what they do not know, and they are always ready to learn. And when the people do fall ill, they help them to heal, so that they survive. Any society that bases itself on ignorance will vanish into the dust.

We will go to our ancestral homeland; the land promised to our ancestors. We will return after hundreds of years. Why were we sent away and why are we allowed to return now? Those who possessed the land in the time of the Patriarchs, even though Abraham had won it with his spear and could have claimed ownership, did not deserve to be dispossessed and, frankly, we were not yet worthy of this special land, The land must be inhabited by a moral people. And we had to achieve such morality, ironically enough, by being treated cruelly, by being humiliated and persecuted and enslaved. Only then could we gain the compassion to be worthy of the special land. Only by understanding the meaning of liberation could we understand that all must be free. And even then, it has been as if we are birds, circling, until the child sacrifices of the peoples of the land rose up in their barbarity and God said it was our time.

In this world, there are peoples and lands, and God’s design was that each people should live in its own land. If only. If only each people could be content in its own land. If only every leader would not be possessed with greed and power and the desire to possess the lands of others. I do not think it is the fault of common people. The fault stays with their leaders, who come up with so-called reasons and so-called injustices so that the people are roused to risk their lives in attacking their neighbors.

Even more ironic is that no one really possesses anything. The earth is the Lord’s. It is not for us to possess the land or ruin the land. The land must be cultivated with wisdom. It must be allowed to rest, just like humans, so it can replenish itself.

If no farm belongs to the farmer, if no land truly belongs to any nation, why do we even have farms and nations? God made us, somehow, to need that sense that we belong to our little bit of the earth, that like the wheat that needs its bit of land and sun and water, we can only grow and flourish when we have a place.

But I should stay in my place. I should not covet my neighbor’s field. And a people should not covet its neighbor nation’s land. If only.

Joshua came running to me one day and said that two of the elders, Eldad and Medad, were prophesying in the camp. He was horrified and wanted to shut them down, even punish them. Joshua saw their prophesying as a potential threat and asked Moses to stop them. I said, calmly “Are you jealous for my sake? I wish that all the Lord's people were prophets” (Numbers 11:29).

I said the right thing, but I did not fully realize how right I was. I have been gifted with great vision. Sometimes I wonder how many of my ideas that I express and laws that I promulgate are not from the External Mind but from my own mind, deriving specifics from a vision of the absolute principle that this is a moral universe, in which our actions toward our fellow human beings must be filled with justice and lovingkindness. So much comes from that.

But since I have this great gift, am I truly open to the ideas of others? Do I really believe that others have something to say? Am I truly ready to accept that the Spirit of Truth can rest on anyone, anywhere, not just in designated holy places or among designated leaders.

People have called me humble. I try to be, but it’s difficult, because I have said and done so many important things. My real humility comes from the understanding that I can learn from others, that I can be wrong, that I can misjudge, that I can be so stuck in one position that I cannot move.

I was more right than I knew when I responded so well to Joshua. He wanted to quiet the others; I wanted to listen to them, to see if they might say something I never thought of, so that my vision, as great as it may be, will become even greater. Others may have something to say. We must approach them with open minds.

We are not only living in the desert; we live in the desert mind. ‘Kill your enemies before they kill you! Destroy them completely so that they cannot seek revenge!’ It is hard for me to take the people in any other direction.

But I have convinced them of one thing. When we fight a just war, and our men take female prisoners of war, they must be given a mourning period. They must be allowed to perform their mourning rituals, such as shaving their heads or cutting their hair or changing their clothes.

I will admit that I never really thought about this. Prisoners were prisoners. But I looked into the eyes of one captive, and I saw a person deep in grief. And that moment changed me.

She told me that the provision about clothes is important. She must be allowed to discard the clothes of her captivity, the garments she was wearing when captured.

She must be allowed to weep for her loved ones. She must remain in the soldier’s house for one full month to mourn her father and mother.

The man then has two options: to marry her or release her. Only after this 30-day period and the completion of these rituals can the soldier marry her and have sexual relations with her.

The woman cannot be enslaved. She cannot be sold. She must be respected.

I had to face complaints and opposition. Yes, I said, they are what we call the spoils of war. No, no other tribe or nation does this. Yes, there is such a thing as a just war and victory does yield gains. No, our women would not be treated like this.

But why must we be stuck in the mind of the desert? We were slaves in Egypt. We were strangers in a strange land. These women are now strangers in a strange society. None of this is their fault. Let them become part of us.

I think about the Promised Land. I think about the people living on their farms. The most significant object in a field is not the crop itself, but a weathered, heavy stone partially buried in the earth. This "landmark" or boundary stone, this marker, serves as a silent sentinel, declaring where one family’s inheritance ends and another’s begins.  These stones stand for the preservation of justice, identity, and the health of our spirits.

"Do not move an ancient boundary stone set up by your ancestors."  This is more than a property law; it is a recognition of a divine order. Every tribe will be given land, an inheritance from God, and the stones are the physical manifestation of His provision. To move a stone is to commit a "quiet theft"—an insidious erosion of another person’s life and security.

These stones cannot be negotiated or traded away. The "ancient landmarks" are boundaries that are not restrictions but the framework for freedom. Without a marked boundary, a field is not a field; it is merely part of an undifferentiated landscape. By maintaining our "stones"—our values, our time, and our convictions—we define the "territory" of our lives, allowing us to cultivate our specific purpose rather than being trampled by the demands of the world.

I link the removal of landmarks to the exploitation of the weak (Deuteronomy 27:17). I pronounce a curse on those who move their neighbor’s boundary stone, specifically because this tactic is often used to cheat widows and orphans out of their livelihood.

Failing to protect the landmark is a form of negligence. If we do not guard the "soil" of our own lives, we eventually have nothing left to offer the very people we wish to serve. Setting a boundary is not an act of selfishness; it is an act of justice for the life you have been tasked to manage.

The boundary stone is designed to be public and permanent. It is not a hidden trap but a visible guidepost. The most destructive "moved stones" are the ones that shift based on mood or convenience.

When a leader or a parent moves the landmark of expectations, it creates a landscape of anxiety. On the other hand, a fixed boundary provides the security necessary for growth. The metaphor of the stone teaches us that truth and limits should be "heavy"—not easily shifted by the winds of opinion or the pressure of a moment. When the landmarks are clear, everyone knows where they stand, and the "ancient paths" of peace become visible once again.

Everyone should receive the promise of the Promised Land. Each piece of the promise is marked by stones that are not so silent but speak to us and to those around us.

I do not decree principles like the command "Do not put a stumbling block before the blind" (Leviticus 19:14) as simply a literal protection of the disabled. Of course you should not put a stumbling block before the blind. Only the cruelest person would do this.

I mean such principles to create an ethical framework for the entire community. In the society I envision, where the Law, the Torah, will be the foundation of reality, ‘blindness’ is a metaphor for ignorance of the Law or lack of discernment.

I was a shepherd, and I often compare the people to a flock of sheep. Since sheep are notoriously short-sighted, the shepherd is the only one with the perspective to see the cliff. Shepherds have a ‘vision’ advantage over others. The common people will have a lack of foresight regarding the spiritual consequences of abandoning the Covenant. This will lead them to ‘high places’ that will eventually cause destruction and exile. High places usually mean altars on the hills, but I am thinking of three types of leaders who will make the people stumble: priests, prophets and kings.

I cannot write about all these now, so let me say a few words about false prophets. When Joshua worried about men who claimed to be prophets prophesying in the camp, I ignored it. I said that I wished God would speak through everyone. This was humble, but too humble. It was naïve. Many will claim to hear God’s Voice, but they are either fooling themselves or attempting to fool everyone else. If you know the truth and persuade the masses toward a lie for your own benefit, you are essentially blinding the nation and leading them into a pit. You are making them fall over a stumbling block.

Prophets are supposed to serve as the "eyes" of the nation. My most fierce condemnations are reserved for leaders who use their influence to lead the people into ruin. I accuse them of casting the entire nation into a state of spiritual and physical blindness.

God is the ultimate witness, so deceiving someone who cannot "see" the trickery is a direct sin against the Divine, who sees all.

When they cross the Jordan and build their homes in the new land, they must not consume every inch of soil for their houses and buildings.

The people, so used to the desert sands, cannot do what I can do, see the land that has been promised to us, to see rivers and trees. I do not know that they can see the color green anymore. They listen with disbelief when I command that around the dwellings of every village and city there shall be a migrash—a greenbelt, a pastureland that belongs to the community forever.

Why I have set apart these lands? They have seen the great cities of Egypt, where the stone reaches out until it chokes the life from the earth. That is not to be our way. By carving out a thousand cubits of open space, and another two thousand beyond that, I am reminding them that the land is a gift held in trust. It is a 'Sabbath' for the earth itself, ensuring the city never swallows the field.

A city without a greenbelt is a prison for animals. I have provided these spaces so that their cattle and sheep may graze within sight of the walls. This is for their economic peace—so that a man may step out from his gate and find the sustenance for his household right at hand, without trekking into the dangerous wilderness.

Walls protect us from enemies, but they can also cage the spirit. These greenbelts are the 'breathing room' of the nation. In these fields, they will see the ripening of the first fruits and the turning of the seasons. They cannot follow the festivals of the Lord—the harvest, the planting, the first rains—if they are buried under a roof of cedar and brick. This land must remain open so that they always remember what feeds them.

I have made this a statute forever, because it is only by law and command that this will be: The fields of the common land of their cities may not be sold (Leviticus 25:34).

No builder shall pave over it.

No king shall seize it for his palace.

No merchant shall wall it off for profit.

It is a heritage for their children’s children, so they may always have a place to walk in freedom, in perpetual openness.

Dream #22: THE PILLARS OF OUR PALACE (13 February 2026)

I understand that my teachings and laws describe a society ruled by God rather than a democracy ruled by the people. But they contain radical innovations that may lay the groundwork for more developments that bring greater power to the people. If there is a king, he is certainly not divine, he is subject to the law and requires the consent of the people he governs. I see a palace with different pillars.

I. The Covenant.

There is a sacred Social Contract. Instead of laws decreed by a god-king like Pharaoh from the top down, I have introduced the concept of a covenant (brit) that requires the people's ratification.

Consent of the People: Before the Torah was given at Mt. Sinai, I asked the people if they accepted the terms. The people responded in unison, "All that the Lord has spoken we will do" (Exodus 19:8).

Ratification: The people said "We will do, and we will listen" (na’aseh v’nishma). The validity of the law depends on the people's acceptance of it.

II. The Rule of Law

The Law of the King (Deuteronomy 17) is in stark contrast to other cultures where the king is the law (or even a ‘god’), the Israelite king is a "brother" chosen from among the people (Deut 17:15). He must write a personal copy of the Torah and keep it with him "that his heart may not be lifted up above his brethren" (Deut 17:20). He is forbidden from amassing excessive capital (horses/military), harem (political alliances), or wealth (silver/gold). This is the first legal code to explicitly limit the power of the king or ruler.

III. Separation of Powers

My Torah laws distribute authority to prevent the consolidation of power.

The King commands the defense and administration.

The Priests control the places of worship and public health, but they are landless and dependent on tithes, preventing them from becoming lords.

The prophets function as the moral check on the king and have complete freedom of speech to criticize him.

IV. Judicial Independence

The Judges preside over independent courts in every town (Deut 16:18).

Other peoples and kingdoms have palaces of stone; we have a palace made up of the bricks of laws.

I recently had one of the most remarkable moments in my life and now I must understand it. I think that we have just established a precedent for reviewing laws and changing them. The concept will be that all Law is dynamic and capable of refinement when challenged by a just cause.

The people closest to me said that the women were arrogant and should have known their place. But it is not disobedience to appeal the law.

This man Zelophehad died without sons. The existing law of inheritance was strictly patrilineal: land passed from father to son to keep property within the tribe. Under the strict reading of the law, his name and his land holding would be "subtracted" from his clan. His daughters did not argue against the system of patriarchy and tribal land. That would have accomplished nothing. They argued against the result of their father's name being erased. They asked, "Why should the name of our father be taken away from his family because he had no son?" (Numbers 27:4)

This highlights a major feature of law: It cannot cover every possibility. The law of "Sons inherit" works most of the time. The sisters exposed the gap where the law caused an injustice.

When they brought their case to me at the Tent of Meeting, I did not know the answer. I didn't dismiss them, nor did I apply the standard law. I waited and I brough their case to God. God explicitly sided with the women (Num. 27:7).

In the privacy of my own thoughts, I never know where my own reasoning begins and ends. Was it just my own logic that admits that their claim is just and so I have amended the law to include daughters when there are no sons?

Torah law is not static or brittle. It feels like the Law waits for human beings to notice the gap in justice. The law wasn't fully complete until human experience (the sisters' predicament) interacted with it.

This moves the law from a set of rigid instructions to a dialogue between ideals and the situations of life. And to initiate that dialogue is never wrong.

The stone of the tablets was heavy in my hands, but it was nothing compared to the weight in my chest as I descended the mountain. Joshua, waiting for me on the slopes, thought he heard the sound of war in the camp. But I knew better. It was not the cry of defeat, nor the shout of victory.

It was the sound of revelry. The chaotic, mindless noise of a people who had abandoned themselves.

When the camp came into view, the breath was driven from my lungs. There, glinting in the desert sun, stood a calf molded of gold. Around it, the people—my people, the people the Almighty had just claimed as His own—were dancing, eating, and rising up to play.

In that moment, the betrayal was so profound it felt like a physical blow. I threw the tablets from my hands, shattering them at the foot of the mountain. The covenant was broken before it had even been fully delivered.

As I stood amid the dust of the shattered stone, a deep, bitter disappointment washed over me. How could they forget so quickly?

They had seen the Nile run thick with blood. They had walked through a darkness so dense it could be felt, while light shone in their own dwellings. Ten times, the very fabric of nature was upended to break their chains.

They had stood at the shores of the Sea of Reeds, trapped by Pharaoh’s chariots, and watched as the wind tore the waters apart. They walked on dry ground between towering walls of the sea.

Every single morning in this barren wasteland, they woke to find bread raining down from heaven, a daily, tangible proof of their preservation.

Yet, a mere forty days. That was all it took. Forty days of my absence, and they traded the Architect of the Universe for a mute, glittering statue of a grass-eating beast.

I ask if they are so dependent on one human being that they cannot maintain their faith without him. The painful truth I realized that day is: Yes.

When the people gathered against Aaron, their cry was telling: "Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him." (Ex 32:1)

They did not ask for a replacement for the Almighty; they asked for a replacement for me.

I had to face harsh realities about the psychology of my people.

They bore the scars of slavery: For four hundred years in Egypt, they were conditioned by a culture of the tangible. Power was Pharaoh, a living god they could see. Religion was grand temples and statues.

The Terror of the Invisible: To worship an invisible, omnipresent, unnamable Deity is a terrifying leap for a newly freed slave. I was their bridge. I spoke to the thunder; I raised the staff; I struck the rock.

The Panic of the Void: When I disappeared into the smoke and fire of Sinai and did not return, they panicked. The void was too vast. They could not yet tolerate the silence of an invisible God without their tangible mediator. So, they built a golden proxy—something they could see, touch, and, most importantly, control.

It was a crushing realization. You can take the Israelites out of Egypt in a matter of days, but taking the idol-worshipping habits of Egypt out of the Israelites would take a lifetime in the wilderness. They leaned on me because they did not yet know how to stand on their own.

Those who remember the smoking peak of Mt. Sinai sometimes ask me why we did not lay a foundation of stone there, at the very foot of the mountain where the Voice of the Almighty shattered the silence of the desert. It is the mountain of God; it is where the bush burned without being consumed, and where the sapphire pavements of heaven briefly touched the earth.

Yet, there will be no temple built at Sinai. And the reasons are woven into the very fabric of the Covenant we have struck with God.

First, the mountain was a threshold, not a destination. Mt. Sinai was a place of passage. The Lord brought us out of the furnace of Egypt not to dwell forever in the desolate wilderness, but to bring us into the land promised to our fathers—to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. To build a permanent temple there would have been to halt the journey and abandon the promise. We are a pilgrim people, and our rest is not found in the desert.

Second, God's presence was not bound to the rock, but to the people. The Lord said to me, "Let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them." He did not say, "that I may dwell upon the mountain." Therefore, we constructed the Mishkan—the Tabernacle—a tent of meeting woven of goat hair, linen, and acacia wood. It is a sanctuary that can be taken down, carried upon the shoulders of the Levites, and pitched wherever the pillar of cloud and fire leads us. God has chosen to walk with us through the dust of the wilderness. To build a temple of static stone at Sinai would be to leave the presence of God behind as we marched toward Canaan.

Third, the holiness of Sinai was an event, not an eternal state. The mountain was holy because the Divine Presence—descended upon it in fire. Bounds were set around it, and neither man nor beast could touch it lest they die. But they have to remember the command given to me: "When the trumpet sounds a long blast, they may go up on the mountain." Once the presence of the Lord lifted, Sinai became merely a mountain of granite once more. The holiness has now been transferred to the Ark of the Covenant and the words of the Law.

Sinai is where we received the covenant but it was not the home where we will live. We must take the Torah we have received here, pack up the tents, and march toward the dawn.