This past summer, I met Moshe Rabbeinu. He wasn’t in Jerusalem (of course) nor did I meet him on my travels in Europe or California. Rather, he was in Chicago, just a few miles south of here. I met him over lunch, an unusual setting to meet one of God’s messengers. But I’m telling you, it was Moshe Rabbeinu. I’m not joking—he was even a real shepherd.
Before standing in front of Pharaoh or leading the Jewish people out of Egypt, Moshe lived as a simple shepherd (Shemot 3):
וּמֹשֶׁ֗ה הָיָ֥ה רֹעֶ֛ה אֶת־צֹ֛אן יִתְר֥וֹ חֹתְנ֖וֹ כֹּהֵ֣ן מִדְיָ֑ן
Now Moses, tending the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian,
וַיִּנְהַ֤ג אֶת־הַצֹּאן֙ אַחַ֣ר הַמִּדְבָּ֔ר וַיָּבֹ֛א אֶל־הַ֥ר הָאֱ-לֹהִ֖ים חֹרֵֽבָה׃
And he drove the flock into the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.
We know that in the very next pasuk, Moshe sees a burning bush. However, our rabbis (Shemot Rabbah 2:2) tell us that there was more to Moshe’s story in Midian:
אָמְרוּ רַבּוֹתֵינוּ, כְּשֶׁהָיָה משֶׁה רַבֵּינוּ עָלָיו הַשָּׁלוֹם רוֹעֶה צֹאנוֹ שֶׁל יִתְרוֹ בַּמִּדְבָּר, בָּרַח מִמֶּנּוּ גְּדִי
Our Rabbis say: When Moses was herding Yitro’s flock in the wilderness, a kid fled from him.
וְרָץ אַחֲרָיו עַד שֶׁהִגִּיעַ לַחֲסִית…
He ran after it, until it reached cover.
Once it reached cover, it happened upon a pool of water, and the kid stopped to drink. When Moses reached it, he said: ‘I didn’t know that you were thirsty. You must be tired.’ He carried it on his shoulder and went on his way.
The midrash concludes powerfully:
אָמַר הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא, יֵשׁ לְךָ רַחֲמִים לִנְהֹג צֹאנוֹ שֶׁל בָּשָׂר וָדָם…אַתָּה תִרְעֶה צֹאנִי
יִשְׂרָאֵל…
The Holy One blessed be He said: ‘You were a compassionate shepherd with the flocks of sheep, thus, you shall herd My flock, Israel.’
***
Somewhere in the south of Israel, in the Gaza envelope, there is a sheep farm. It was there that a man named Oz Davidian learned to be a shepherd. As a teen and young adult, Oz—whose name in Hebrew means strength or valor—would take the flock out to graze on the hills, in the wadi, and through fields.
Later, Oz continued to work in the area, now as an attorney and as the government representative to the local Bedouin community. In this capacity, Oz would drive around the region in his old white pickup truck, speaking Arabic with the Bedouins.
Oz lives in the nearby Maslul, a small moshav. In Hebrew, maslul means a “course” or “journey.” Maslul is right on the way to Ofakim. Oz knows this whole area—the communities and the terrain—inside and out.
Oz keeps his pickup full of gas as a habit, especially before a weekend or holiday. Nearly two years ago, on Friday night October 6th, he filled up his truck with gas while the holiday of Simchat Torah was setting in. Oz had sunflower seeds as well—gar’inim—and his weapon on him for security.
The next morning, Oz was woken up by the sirens. After learning about the attack, he got into his truck and drove back roads toward the Nova festival site, about 15 kilometers from his home. If you look on the map, Maslul is almost a direct line—along a wadi riverbed—from where the Nova festival was.
Oz crossed Highway 232, which would come to be known as k’vish ha’damim, the road of blood, and made his way into the Nova festival site. Messages were coming into his phone about a terrorist attack in Reim or Be’eri. He tried to explain that no, he had arrived at the correct site, a field and forest, and that there was an attack happening there, at that very minute.
Amidst the chaos and murder, Oz somehow found a group of “kids” (as he called them) and loaded them onto his truck. He turned around, crossed route 232 and made it back home, calling ahead to ensure that the moshav’s community room was ready to receive the survivors and the injured.
אָמַר הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא, יֵשׁ לְךָ רַחֲמִים לִנְהֹג צֹאנוֹ שֶׁל בָּשָׂר וָדָם…אַתָּה תִרְעֶה צֹאנִי יִשְׂרָאֵל…
The Holy One blessed be He said: ‘You were a compassionate shepherd with the flocks of sheep, thus, you shall herd My flock, Israel.’
Once back in Maslul, the 12 “kids” were safe. But then, a flurry of Whatsapp messages began. Before long, one of the rescued partygoers shared with Oz a location pin on WhatsApp. It was the locator for another group, safely hidden from the carnage around them for the moment at least.
Oz went out again. Another mission through the wadi and around hills, across route 232. He found the group from the WhatApp locator. He rescued them as well and brought them back to Maslul.
Oz shared in his retelling that because of his Arabic, his clothes, and his pickup truck, he had a degree of cover, though his appearance eventually became a liability with Israeli soldiers. Later on, he stood for minutes waving his arms and shouting in Hebrew as four Israeli soldiers cautiously approached him.
Over the course of that terrible day, Oz Davidian made 15 separate rescue trips, each one an unthinkable mission, filled with miracles and too many brushes with death to count. Oz Davidian saved 120 people that day. Like I said, I met a “Moshe Rabbeinu.”
After I met Oz, I was left with a question: What prepares a person for such a mission?
The midrash I cited before offers us one answer: ‘You had compassion, רַחֲמִים, on the flocks in this manner; you will herd My flock, Israel.’ Moshe shepherded sheep before God chose him to become his greatest messenger. Oz was a shepherd of sheep as well, before shepherding a different flock to safety.
In the Torah an emissary or messenger is called a malach, an angel. But halakha offers us a different term, utilizing the term “shaliach” when speaking about a human messenger.
The basic legal principle of Shlichut derives from the Talmud (Kiddushin 41a) and is expressed in the phrase שֶׁשְּׁלוּחוֹ שֶׁל אָדָם כְּמוֹתוֹ, “a person’s agent is equivalent to themself.” Shlichut meant that an emissary could offer the Korban Pesach on someone’s behalf, deliver a gett, or effectuate a marriage. When you appoint me to sell your chametz for you before Pesach, you are making me your shaliach.
In an essay entitled Shlichut, Rav Soloveitchik writes that we learn something much more fundamental—more sacred and metaphysical—from the appointment of Moshe Rabbeinu as God’s messenger.
וְעַתָּ֣ה לְכָ֔ה וְאֶֽשְׁלָחֲךָ֖ אֶל־פַּרְעֹ֑ה
Come, therefore, I will send you to Pharaoh.
“These words,” writes the Rav, “were not limited to Moses and are not so simple. Within this verse a deep truth is revealed: that the Master of the Universe, who is Secret and Hidden, who is Sovereign, Eternal and Unending, appoints as emissaries flesh and blood, [humans] who are today and buried tomorrow.”
Perhaps we have wondered why God needed a shaliach—Moshe or anyone else—at all?! Within a few chapters, the Nile turns to blood and locusts swarm. Surely, all of these plagues could have happened without Moshe’s help.
Rav Soloveitchik writes that Moshe’s shlichut was a paradigm for us all. Each one of us has some kind of mission. We are each messengers, partners with the Divine.
But how does this work conceptually? Rav Soloveitchik offers a beautiful framework for our own spiritual shlichut.
Rav Soloveitchik explores this same principle, שֶׁשְּׁלוּחוֹ שֶׁל אָדָם כְּמוֹתוֹ, “a person’s agent is equivalent to themself.” On the surface of it, this is a very strange legal principle to try to map onto the relationship between human beings and God. Unlike you and me, who share 99% of our DNA, we are utterly distinct from God. However, says the Rav, we are like God in one essential way: each person was created in God’s image. שלוחו של הקב״ה נברא בצלמו, as the Rav puts it, “God’s agent was created in God’s image.” And in that sense, we are Godly enough to act as God’s emissaries.
If this feels overwhelming or confusing, do not worry, you are not alone. It is said that the great Hasidic master Rabbi Israel of Rhyzen, “The Rhyzener” would pray: “Dear God, I do not ask you to explain to me why the world has been created, or why the good suffer and the evil prosper. Only, please, tell me: What am I doing in this world of yours?”
Later this morning in Unetaneh Tokef, we will read of two sounds from the shofar:
וּבְשׁוֹפָר גָּדוֹל יִתָּקַע וְקוֹל דְּמָמָה דַקָּה יִשָׁמַע
A great shofar is sounded, and a still, small voice shall be heard.
On Rosh Hashanah, we try to listen for the still small voice, the call within us. In his book I Asked for Wonder, Heschel describes this act of listening in this way: “There is a question that follows me wherever I turn: What is expected of me? What is demanded of me?
What we encounter is not only flowers and stars, mountains and walls. Over and above all things is a sublime expectation, a waiting for. With every child born a new expectation enters the world.
Listening for this voice, says Heschel, is “the most important experience in the life of every human being: something is asked of me. Every human being has had a moment in which they sensed a mysterious waiting for them. Meaning is found in responding to the demand, meaning is found in sensing the demand.”
Our work today and this year is to sense this demand, to each day discern the answer to this simple question: What is my mission?
Sometimes a mission demands the heroic, like the skills and strength of an Oz Davidian. Still, let us remember that Oz did not plan to be a hero. Rather, he had a particular set of skills and experiences—like Moshe Rabbeinu—which uniquely prepared him to hear a call and to answer it.
The same is true for each of us, says Rav Soloveitchik. “The fact that we live in a certain time and era, in this place, and that we were not born under different circumstances means that each one of us is here with a mission to fulfill. God above knows how every individual, with all their faults and inner strengths, can fulfill their mission. For this very reason every individual was born in a time and a place in which they can fulfill their special calling.”
Or, as I tell my children on their birthdays (which is usually met with eyes rolled), Rebbe Nachman says that “your birthday is the day that God decided the world could no longer exist without you.” Similarly, one of the names of Rosh Hashanah is Yom Harat Olam, the birthday of the world, and the world cannot continue in this year without us. Each of us is here for a reason, we have a purpose, a shlichut, a mission that we alone can fulfill. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be here right now, says Rav Soloveitchik.
I pray that none of us will ever face a life-threatening situation like Oz did. At the same time, we must remember that each of us—in our own way—can be a lifesaver, for someone in our lives or a stranger we come across.
A few weeks ago, I ran into an old acquaintance, the son of a mentor of mine from Rabbinical School. I hadn’t seen this acquaintance in many years—I think he was in high school then and he now is a professor of Jewish Studies. I asked how his parents were doing and then somewhat sheepishly said (perhaps because it was Elul) that his father saved my life. The acquaintance smiled and said, yes, he had heard that a few times about his father. And what I was trying to say, which maybe I said overly dramatically, was that in my life, this mentor of mine was the right person at the right time to guide me. He was a messenger, bringing me through a narrow place.
So, what is my mission? Sometimes, we don’t know what our mission is until a much later time. We may realize afterwards that we were someone’s shaliach, that we fulfilled a holy mission for someone.
We might run from a mission like we will read in the book of Jonah on Yom Kippur. Over the course of our life, we may have many missions, for different situations call for distinct skills and experiences. Still, the question that remains for us is: how can I be God’s messenger, a shaliach today and in the year to come?
How can I be a shaliach with my kids, for my friends, or in my community? A random phone call can change the trajectory of someone’s week. Some kind words, an hour of our time, or a Shabbat meal invitation can be a life-saver.
There are missions waiting all around us. If we just look around, listen carefully, and sense the demand. Our year ahead—and perhaps someone’s life—may depend on it. And as our tradition teaches us (Sanhedrin 37a), “whoever saves a life, it is as if they have saved the whole world.”
***
This past March, there was a photo of a celebration in Israel that went viral. In the background is a sign with Psalm 100 on it, which we read each morning to begin pesukei d’zimrah. The opening lines of the psalm read:
מִזְמ֥וֹר לְתוֹדָ֑ה הָרִ֥יעוּ לַ֝ה׳ כׇּל־הָאָֽרֶץ׃ עִבְד֣וּ אֶת־ה׳ בְּשִׂמְחָ֑ה
A psalm for praise. Raise a shout for the LORD, all the earth; Serve God with joy; come into His presence with shouts of joy.
Standing in front of the sign, in the photo are four people:
There are two beaming new parents. They were two of the “kids” from the Nova festival who were saved.
Standing next to them is Oz Davidian.
And in the center is their baby, whom of course, they named Oz.
Daf of the Day
