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In the eyes of us mere mortals, the heroes of history appear to do the impossible. Where the common man only sees insurmountable obstacles and an unchanging status quo, the great men appear to impose their will upon the world, changing it as they see fit. They are unanimously seen as exceptional, even if one cannot easily identify what makes them so. Often, the only explanation that can be given is that they were born this way, chosen by God if you will.
Though it would be easy to see Moses in a similar light, and many in fact do, this would be a mistake. Despite what the midrashim and commentators may claim, the Torah shows that Moses was not born a great man but rather became one. God is not even mentioned in the book of Exodus until Moses is nearly an old man, long after his rebellious actions have forever changed his life’s course. Truly appreciating Moses’ greatness requires us to see him not as being born special but to see in him the unique human dimension that resides in all of us.
If God chooses Moses, it is only because he acts differently than all other Jews and Egyptians. In a world of masters and slaves, Egyptians and Jews see this as the natural state of affairs. To be born a Jew is to be born a slave, and to be a born an Egyptian, is to see Pharaoh as the master of all. While it is easy for us to judge the Jews and Egyptians as depicted in the biblical narrative, we must also confront the fact that their behavior often holds true for us as well. Though we see injustice all around us, we rarely do anything about it, and the Torah provides good reason for our reticence. When one acts against the world’s injustices, one is forced to confront the profound limits of one’s abilities. Challenging structures of oppression means risking one’s life, for those in power will always react violently to that which threatens them. The expression, “no good deed goes unpunished,” elegantly captures the experience of those who try to change the world for the better.
Moses, of course, learns all of this. While we should applaud him for intervening when he sees the Jewish slave being viciously beaten, it is also easy to imagine Moses saw himself as taking a calculated risk. He looks “this way and that” to ensure there are no witnesses and then strikes down the Egyptian. By burying the body in the sand, he eliminates all evidence of his deed and can return home confident in the righteousness of his actions. Only the next day, he discovers that life is never that simple. Not only has his killing of the Egyptian been discovered, but the Jews, on whose behalf he acted, show him little gratitude for what he has done. It is only a matter of time before Pharaoh hears and seeks Moses’ death, causing Moses to flee from the only home he has known.
At this point in the narrative, we would assume Moses wants nothing more than to be left alone. We are all familiar with the trope of the failed rebel or activist, who, after suffering great losses, becomes a cynic dedicated only to their own self-preservation. But instead of keeping to himself, Moses acts once more against injustice when he sees the Midianite shepherdesses harassed by men by the well. By acting on behalf of the weak against the strong, Moses appears to have learned nothing from his prior experiences. His actions seem almost inexplicable. Like slavery in Egypt, men oppressing women was the natural order of the ancient world, and assuming it should be otherwise is to live in a fantasy. Furthermore, his experience in Egypt has taught him that even if he is able to overcome the shepherds today, they can always come back tomorrow with more friends in a force far beyond what Moses alone can handle. In striking down the Egyptian, Moses could at least hope that his status as a prince might protect him from the consequences. Certainly, Pharaoh wouldn’t kill his own grandson. But here in Midian, Moses knows no one. As the Rambam notes, he is a stranger and an outsider and therefore more vulnerable than all others, yet somehow he still chooses to act:
“after having been filled with fear and having fled- he came to Midian as a stranger full of fear and saw some wrong that was done, he could not refrain from putting an end to it and was incapable of patience with regard to it, as it says: “But Moshe stood up and helped them” (Shemot 2:17).”
In the Rambam’s eyes, reason alone cannot make sense of Moses’ unyielding pursuit of justice in the face of all opposition, for is not the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over, thinking a different outcome can occur? As a result, he attributes Moses’ extraordinary actions to divine inspiration, the fact he “finds in himself something that moves and incites him to action, and that is called the spirit of the Lord” ( Guide for the Perplexed 2:45). From our perspective, Moses’ impatience with injustice is to be lauded, but it also seems to have an almost pathological character to it. In the real world, those who act like Moses are not usually praised but rather dismissed as madmen.
To better understand Moses’ actions, we must turn to a Jewish thinker who is, in many ways, the polar opposite of the Rambam. What is needed is not an expert in reason but one who grasps that a lack of reason defines our very humanity. Nearly two decades after publishing The Interpretation of Dreams, a book that made him a household name throughout much of Europe, Sigmund Freud came to the radical conclusion that his psychoanalytic theory required major revision. For the longest time, he had believed that human beings unconsciously censor and repress desires that are not socially acceptable, but he had failed to grapple with the extent to which human beings so often act against their self-interest in ways that damage them. He came to this realization in the wake of World War I, when soldiers returning from the front were haunted by nightmares of the traumas they had experienced. Rather than repressing them and trying to move on with their life, these soldiers seemed doomed to repeat their painful experiences. In response to this phenomenon, Freud published Beyond the Pleasure Principle, and introduced an idea that would gain him the scorn and derision of the world of psychoanalysis and beyond: the concept of the death drive.
The death drive, perhaps Freud’s most misunderstood idea, is not a desire for death per se but rather describes how all human beings are driven to repeatedly act in ways that bring about the kind of loss that death signifies for us. Perhaps the clearest explanation of it can be seen in the example Freud describes of his young grandson. Too young to speak but just old enough to engage in play, Freud’s grandson frequently took a spindle and threw it from his crib. After finding it, he would throw it away once more. This behavior would get repeated again and again, the young boy saying the word Fort (meaning gone) when he threw the spindle and the word Da (meaning here) when he retrieved it.
Freud interpreted this game as an attempt by his grandson to confront his mother’s absence, given that he was old just enough to be by himself and aware when she was not around. Because the mother or any primary caregiver is a presence that brings warmth and comfort to the child, a sense of having their needs met, their absence is felt as a profound loss even if it is only for a short period of time. In throwing the spindle, Freud argued, the young child was able to recreate the same sense of loss he felt when his mother was not present, and through the game, attempt to master it.
One might think the goal of psychoanalysis is to gain mastery over the death drive, but Freud himself understood that it inevitably exceeds our control, and saw this in his grandson’s game. Though refinding the spindle was clearly more pleasurable for the child, Freud witnessed him throw it away much more often than he ever saw it being found. In other words, death drive is the dimension of our unconscious that subverts the actions that bring us satisfaction. In Freud’s words, it is what pushes us beyond the pleasure principle and compels us to act against our self-interest. Though some might want to imbue the death drive with an almost mystical quality, its not hard to see it in action all around us in our everyday world. It’s why people smoke cigarettes despite knowing it will kill them and vote for political parties whose policies will only damage them. If we are honest with ourselves, we have no choice but to admit that our lives are often plagued by actions that harm our stated goals, compromise our self-interest, and bring about the same kind of loss Freud’s grandson experienced every time he threw away the spindle.
While it’s easy to think of death drive as only a negative force, this misses the role it plays in matters of the greatest importance, as can be seen in Moses’ actions. The truly ethical act, the kind that doesn’t merely reinforce the status quo but fundamentally challenges it, can only be understood through the logic of the death drive, something Rambam seems to grasp when he describes Moses as divinely inspired. Most, if not nearly all the time, acting out against injustice is deeply irrational. While we may assume fighting injustice requires courage, there always reaches a point where courage and folly blend together. Challenging hierarchies of oppression always means risking loss, a loss of one’s status and even one’s life. By challenging the Midianite shepherds despite all he had been through, Moses was not superman but rather all too human. He was, in a sense, throwing away his spindle once more, just as Freud’s grandson had done. Perhaps it’s not surprising Freud discovered the death drive in the actions of a young child, for children are known for their stubbornness and rebelliousness. Fighting injustice requires nothing less.
In his unyielding pursuit of justice, Moses can hardly be called crazy. Yes, he has been forced to leave Egypt, and appears to have lost everything that matters: his home, his wealth, his fame and fortune. Yes, he is a stranger in a strange land; an outsider with little to his name. But in embracing loss, it would be wrong to think he hasn’t gained anything at all, for as long as one remains trapped within the status quo, the highest good will always be determined by those with the greatest power. It is only by going beyond the pleasure principle, as the death drive enables us, we can discover those things which are truly sublime; those things which submit themselves before no earthly power, whether it be the Pharaoh of Egypt or the patriarchy of Midian. You want to take away Moses’ possessions? He has none. You want to take away his social status? He doesn’t have that either. But do you know what Moses does have? A sense that justice is divine. And there is no force in the world that can take that away from him.