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.