By the time the reader gets to Exodus 3:1-3:17, they have already seen Moses get saved in the Nile river by the princess of Egypt, kill a Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew and flee Egypt, and finally get married. In this section of the text, Moses is confronted by God in the form of a burning bush. God asks Moses to go back to Egypt and save his people, the Israelites but Moses is hesitant. There are many different interpretations of this text that all have their own merits. Philo of Alexandria believed that the burning bush was in fact not God, Kugel interprets the God in the burning bush to be the "God of Old", and finally the Kaminsky and Lohr understand God to be "a personality who can be affected by humans" (Kaminsky, p.67).
The Jewish
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Bible presents Gods character as being confined to one place. It states, Moses "drove the flock into the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God." By writing "into the wilderness" the author is suggesting that Moses went out of his way to bring his sheep to Mount Sinai. The text states that this mountain is holy and once he arrives there God appears to him in a burning bush. But if God is omnipotent and omnipresent why doesn't he just appear to Moses in his home or in the fields close to his home? Why does he appear to him in a place that Moses would normally never go? Also, why does the text state that the angel of the Lord appeared in front of Moses and then in the next line state that God spoke? Philo of Alexandria attempts to explain God's lack of omnipresence in his own interpretation of this chapter. Philo was a Hellenistic Jewish Philosopher who was born in 25 BCE. Unlike how God is described in the Old Testament, Philo believed that God was omnipresent. Kugel writes, "For Philo, however, such an interpretation was impossible. As far as he knew, God is everywhere; what need was there for Him to lead Moses to one spot or another?" (Kugel, p. 213). Philo described the bush as a "puny sort of plant" and said the bush "appeared… invulnerable". Kugel says that Philo describes the bush in this manner to show that the bush symbolizes the people of Israel, and the fire the Egyptians. Philo interpreted the text to show that even under fire the Israelites will survive through God's protection and saving grace. This is an interesting interpretation that did not stand out on the first read through of this text. Philo's interpretation of the text also accounts for the discrepancy between who is actually talking to Moses, the Angel of the Lord or God. Kugle writes, "the word "angel" in Greek, angelos, also means "announcer" or "herald." Such a meaning fitted perfectly for Philo's symbolic understanding of the burning bush" (Kugel p. 213-214). This translation of angel allowed Philo to say that the bush was really just a visual announcement and not really an Angel of the Lord. After reading through Philo's interpretation of this text, and the way he dealt with the discrepancies in the story, make the text more believable and relatable. Transitioning into God's conversation with Moses, we see a reluctant Moses and a "pushover" of a God through there many exchanges.
When Moses is asked by God to go and save his people in Egypt he comes up with a series of excuses in order to try and get God to pick another human to do this job. This makes sense because to the reader because Moses was born a Israelite but raised and Egyptian. He knows that the treachery that is happening in his birthplace is wrong because he killed an Egyptian to save an Israelite. The reader could assume that one of the main reasons he does not want to go back to Egypt is because they know who he is and want to kill him. But after reading from Jewish Study Bible's footnotes, Moses reluctance is similar to all of the other prophets who have been chosen by God. God states that he will be with them and says "That shall be your sign". The Jewish Study Bible states, "It is unclear whether the sign is God's presence with Moses, the fact He sent him, or the future return to Horeb and worship there" (p. 103). In my interpretation of the reading, the sign that God is with Moses is seen in the later chapters of Exodus when Moses performs the various miracles such as turning his rod into a snake and so on. In order to perform these miracles God had to be there in order to help Moses perform those miracles as Moses is only
human. One of the main excuses that Moses presents for his inability to execute the task that God has asked him to do is his inability to speak to large crowds. Moses says, "Please, O Lord, I have never been a man of words, either in times past or now that You have spoken to Your servant; I am slow of speech and slow of tongue" (Exodus 3:10-11). Many scholars interpret this line in the text to mean that Moses had some sort of speech impediment. The Lords response to this excuse was that He was the Lord and He puts the speech in people mouths. But again Moses asked God to find someone else. Instead of just forcing Moses to save his people and give him proper speech, God concedes and tells Noah to take his brother Aaron with him. If God is omnipotent why wouldn't he just fix Moses voice or better yet just free the Israelites himself? Why does he need Moses? Why does God concede to Moses request instead of being the stubborn God that we have seen throughout the beginning of the Jewish Study Bible?
“Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no help at all.� Dale Carnegie believed that perseverance could overcome even the harshest obstacles. Perseverance is inspired by a purpose, an unsatisfied drive to achieve a goal. During a cataclysmic event, only people with a purpose endure.
Family and Adversity It is almost unimaginable the difficulties victims of the holocaust faced in concentration camps. For starters they were abducted from their homes and shipped to concentration camps in tightly packed cattle cars. Once they made it to a camp, a selection process occurred. The males were separated from the females.
Zora Hurston was an African American proto-feminist author who lived during a time when both African Americans and women were not treated equally. Hurston channeled her thirst for women’s dependence from men into her book Their Eyes Were Watching God. One of the many underlying themes in her book is feminism. Zora Hurston, the author of the book, uses Janie to represent aspects of feminism in her book as well as each relationship Janie had to represent her moving closer towards her independence.
Wiesel’s community at the beginning of the story is a little town in Transylvania where the Jews of Sighet are living. It’s called “The Jewish Community of Sighet”. This is where he spent his childhood. By day he studied Talmud and at night he ran to the synagogue to shed tears over the destruction of the Temple. His world is a place where Jews can live and practice Judaism. As a young boy who is thirteen at the beginning of the story, I am very impressed with his maturity. For someone who is so young at the time he is very observant of his surroundings and is very good at reading people. In the beginning he meets Moishe the Beadle. Moishe is someone who can do many different types of work but he isn’t considered qualified at any of those jobs in a Hasidic house of prayer (shtibl). For some reason, though young Elie is fascinated with him. He meets Moishe the Beadle in 1941. At the time Elie really wants to explore the studies of Kabbalah. One day he asks his father to find him a master so he can pursue this interest. But his father is very hesitant about this idea and thinks young E...
Since the publication of, Night by Eliezer Wiesel, the holocaust has been deemed one of the darkest times in humanity, from the eradication of Jewish people to killing of innocents. Wiesel was one of the Jewish people to be in the holocaust and from his experience he gave us a memoir that manages to capture the dark side of human nature in the holocaust. He demonstrates the dark side of human nature through the cruelty the guards treat the Jews and how the Jews became cold hearted to each other. Wiesel uses foreshadowing and imagery, and metaphors to describe these events.
The theme of Night is resilience. To be resilient is to be strong and able to bounce back when things happen. Elie shows resilience many times throughout the course of Night, and some of these times included when Elie and his block are being forced to run to the new camp, when somebody attempts to kill him and when he loses his father to sickness. When Elie is with the group of people running to the new camp, he knows that he needs to persevere and be resilient, even when the person that he is talking to gives up (Wiesel 86). Elie tries to tell somebody that they need to keep going, and that it will not be much longer, but when they give up, Elie does not seem to pity the boy, and he stays strong. Somebody also attempted to strangle Elie while
In the book Night by Elie Wiesel, humanity is a theme seen throughout. Humanity can be defined in many ways. It can be the disposition to do good, or it can be the human race. In the Night, the theme of humanity is the disposition to do good. In the book, Elie loses and finds his humanity. At the end, he holds on to his humanity, but loses some of it after events like his father’s death. Elie succeeds in retaining his humanity because he holds on to his father, he feels sympathy for people at the camps, and he keeps faith. Elie retains his humanity in the end even though he loses it in the middle of the book.
Janie sets out on a quest to make sense of inner questions. She does not sit back and
The late first lady Eleanor Roosevelt once said, "Hate and force cannot be in just a part of the world without having an effect on the rest of it." Mrs. Roosevelt means that although one person may feel alone through the hardships one faces, one has millions beside oneself who can relate to and understand what one may feel. Zora Neale Hurston shows that even though Janie's family and spouses continue to be abusive and harsh toward Janie, their hate and control left her stronger than before, preparing her for the next challenges thrown at her. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, the deaths' of close relatives and family positively affect Janie because she tends to become more educated and wiser with each death she overcomes in the obstacles she calls her life.
From the beginning of society, men and women have always been looked at as having different positions in life. Even in the modern advanced world we live in today, there are still many people who believe men and women should be looked at differently. In the work field, on average women are paid amounts lower than men who may be doing the exact same thing. Throughout the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston brings about controversy on a mans roles. Janie Crawford relationships with Logan, Joe and Tea Cake each bring out the mens feelings on masculine roles in marital life.
Eliezer Wiesel loses his faith in god, family and humanity through the experiences he has from the Nazi concentration camp.
Moses spends forty years following the instructions of God throughout Exodus. However, in Numbers, God tells him to speak to the rock and it will bring them water. Instead of speaking to the rock, he strikes it with his staff, like he did previously in Exodus. When he does not directly follow the instructions he was given, God responds by saying, “‘Because you were not faithful to me in showing forth my sanctity before the Israelites, you shall not lead this community into the land I will give them,’” (Numbers 20:12). Moses ends up being able to see the Promised Land, but never being able to set foot inside
This section of exodus focuses on Moses, an Israelite who was raised as an Egyptian, who has fled from Egypt after the Pharaoh tried to kill him for killing an Egyptian man. By Exodus 3:1 Moses is married to Zipporah daughter of Jethro who gives him a job working as a shepherd. While tending to his animals Moses arrives at Horeb also known as Mount Sinai or the Mountain of God. Here Moses has his first theophany with God in the form of a burning bush. During this passage God talks to Moses telling him what he needs to do: go to Egypt and convince the Pharaoh to let the Egyptians go by performing a series of miracles. What god is asking Moses to do is intimidating. At this time the Pharaoh was the ruler of Egypt who had a powerful army and the Israelite’s weren’t going to be easy to convince that God sent him. Despite the “signs” Moses is reluctant to take the role beca...
Night is a memoir written by Elie Wiesel, a young Jewish boy, who tells of his experiences during the Holocaust. Elie is a deeply religious boy whose favorite activities are studying the Talmud and spending time at the Temple with his spiritual mentor, Moshe the Beadle. At an early age, Elie has a naive, yet strong faith in God. But this faith is tested when the Nazi's moves him from his small town.
According to the book of Exodus in the Bible, Israel's future leader, Moses, was born at a very risky time. It was a time when the Jews in Egypt had increased in number and prospered so much that the Egyptian pharaoh decreed that every male Jew who was born at that time was to be killed. Moses was born a Jew. However, when his mother realized that, the time came for him to be born; she decided not to let him be killed and was eager to hide him. It was not possible though to keep him with her, for she would be found. Consequently, she decided to hide him among the reeds in the River Nile (Exodus 1-2 and QB VI...