Shemot: Naming — the Meaning of Names

I am happy to be with you again for the second book of the Torah, the book of Shemot, “Names.” As you know, the five books of the Torah bear the name of their first parashah, but in reality that name covers the whole book. Bereshit is Genesis — yet it is not only the genesis of creation, it is the genesis of the Jewish people through the Patriarchs: how it came about, as we have seen, through the formation of the first family cell. And you know what man’s first function was when he was created: to give names — to identify the world around him, its beings and its things. And the name he gives is the very essence of the creature or of the object. And to give a name there is a verb, the one we are going to develop: bo, to come.

As you know, this verb “to come” in Hebrew is made up of two letters, bet and aleph. Instead of the aleph — the one — splitting into the multiple, it is, on the contrary, the multiple that goes toward unity. In other words, when one lives in such intimacy with the universe, one can truly probe its essence and give it a name. And the second book of the Torah is Shemot: to give an identity, to bestow an identity. That is not easy, mind you. We shall see that at the beginning, when G-d creates His world, He needs to give it a name: Vayikra Elokim la-or yom, ve-lachoshech kara laylah — “G-d called the light day, and the darkness He called night” (Bereshit 1:5). Does that mean something? Yes, certainly.

It means that everything that remains dark around us is truly night, and everything we have discovered, everything on which we have shed light — that, for us, is full day. That is the first idea; we shall see that there are other meanings. And this act of designating every object and every being by its essence, as I have just said, was entrusted to man. Man, too, gives a name to his wife when he discovers her — le-zot yikarei ishah, “she shall be called woman” (Bereshit 2:23) — and when she becomes a mother, he gives her another name: she is em kol chai, “the mother of all life” (Bereshit 3:20). But it is not only the identity of the other, or of the world, that is sought; it is also the identity of G-d: az huchal likro be-shem Hashem, “then men began to call upon the name of Hashem” (Bereshit 4:26). It is as though the reality of G-d were hidden in the world — blurred, lying in the night. It must be brought to light. It dwells within us, in the very depths of ourselves, and we do not realize it; we must discover it and give it a name. So in the generation of Enosh they began to give it a name, but because the name they gave it was blurred, it gave birth to idolatrous cults. It took Avraham, who proclaimed — vayikra be-shem Hashem, “he called upon the name of Hashem” (Bereshit 12:8). I draw your attention to the kinship between the verb kara, to call, and the verb to cry out, for this is proclaiming: to proclaim is to cry out the name of G-d across the universe. And it was Avraham — vayikra Avraham be-shem Hashem — Avraham who proclaimed the name of Hashem. So the importance of this name reaches as far as the recognition of the oneness of the Holy One, blessed be He, and its proclamation. Hence the name of the second book, Shemot, which follows Bereshit: for if Bereshit is the Genesis, this Genesis must still be given a purpose, must still be given a name. And its name will be discovered, or brought to completion, by the Bnei Yisrael, the children of Israel.

The Bnei Yisrael are the ones charged with bringing to light this purpose of the world, the reason for which the world was created. That is why it is held that Bereshit and Shemot form only a single book. They are not two different books, because the purpose of the creation of the world lies in the reconstitution, in miniature, of this world, of this universe, through the Beit HaMikdash, the Mishkan, the Sanctuary; and as long as the Sanctuary has not been set up, the purpose of the world remains somewhat ambiguous, undefined. And once it is defined — then listen: which book follows? Vayikra. In Vayikra it is no longer man who calls G-d, who goes out to discover G-d; it is G-d who reveals Himself to man, since man has made an act of will to conform to a moral order and to realize within himself the sanctuary of G-d — to be a mobile sanctuary across the world. And to be a mobile sanctuary across the world, one must also agree to set out into the wilderness: Bamidbar.

Bamidbar is the place where our very realities are put to the test. For if we are settled there comfortably in our lives, and have not forged this identity within ourselves through trials — just as when one studies something, when one sets out to discover something, one does not go without risk — then we are not likely to arrive at Devarim. Devarim means “events.” And these events — the book of Devarim — are written by a man, by Moshe. It is Moshe’s response to the Torah; that is to say, these acts are taken in hand. All the events are taken in hand for man — by man, excuse me — together with the One who dwells in him, that is, the infinite that dwells in him, the power that dwells in him, the capacity that dwells in him.

Of course, this creative power, a holy force from on high, was breathed into him — so that the Creator and the created find themselves partners in one and the same project. Now this project — and I will never stop repeating it — is universal, not national. This project begins with exile. Without exile there is no project. It is true that Avraham’s story begins with Lech lecha, “go forth” — we shall come back to it — a march forward, a march toward the Promised Land, toward the laboratory of ideas, the laboratory of the identity of each thing. But if one wants to look far ahead — because as long as it is individual, well, that may suffice — if one wants to look far ahead, one must know how to go down into Egypt. And Egypt is regarded as the center, the microcosm of the universe, of all cultures and all civilizations. Now, what is this going-out of Egypt called in Hebrew?

And it is not the going-out from Egypt; it is the going-out of Egypt itself. That is to say, it is not the Jewish people that went out of Egypt, it is Egypt that went out of its own limits. We freed Egypt — we freed this Egypt from bondage to its idols, to its cults, to its civilization, in order to give it another dimension, a far greater identity. And now we shall understand a small detail. You know that we have Mashiach ben Yosef and Mashiach ben David; both are liberators of the Jewish people, and of humanity through the Jewish people — on the economic plane and on the spiritual plane. The economic plane is Yosef.

Yosef — mark this — is pursued by his brothers because of his dreams, which were precisely universalist, and he is condemned to go down into Egypt. That is where he marries: he marries the daughter of a priest, Poti-Phera, kohen On, the priest of On. That is where he has two children. And how does he name them? The first: ki nashani Elokim et kol amali ve-et kol beit avi, “for G-d has made me forget all my toil and all my father’s house” (Bereshit 41:51). I am translating literally, at the first level: G-d has made me forget my toil — and my father’s house! He cut himself off from the narrow nationalism of his brothers, who would not hear of his dreams of stars across the sky in the middle of the night. That is the first. And the second, what does he call him? He calls him Ephraim.

“For G-d has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction” (Bereshit 41:52) — mark how he names Egypt: the land of my affliction, the land where I am a stranger, the land where I was exiled — but I have succeeded. I have succeeded in giving Egypt something new, a new view of things. I have already had occasion to say that on the economic plane he saved Egypt; on the “Freudian” plane, he explained Egypt’s dreams; and then he gave them faith in Elokim, in G-d. But an immanent G-d, not a transcendent G-d. For that, they would still have to pass through the trials of the ten plagues, in order to discover this G-d and name Him by His name. But let us not skip the stages; let us leave it there.

Now let us take Moshe. His path is almost the same. Moshe is born in Egypt, into a Jewish family; he is adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter, and it is she who gives him a name. What is this name, Moshe? In Egyptian it means ben, “the son” — ben mayim, the son of the water. Now, who gives him the name Moshe, if you pay attention to the verse itself in the text? Va-tomer ki min ha-mayim meshitihu, “and she said: for I drew him out of the water” (Shemot 2:10). This va-tomer, “and she said” — who said it? Since she herself was already speaking, already saying that she called him Moshe, why does she need to add — why does the text need to add — “and she said”? It is his mother, Yocheved, who says it: min ha-mayim meshitihu — you drew him out of the water. You know, water is mentioned for the first time at creation: the spirit of G-d hovered over the waters (Bereshit 1:2); the waters covered absolutely everything.

Water can drown everything; it can irrigate everything and make things grow again. It can erase every trace and give new life. And it can serve as a mikveh taharah, an immersion bath of purity — not only for the individual but for the entire universe, as was the case with the Flood. And so Moshe is left like this, with an identity, a name, that is undefined. Moshe is simply the inversion of the word: reverse the name Moshe (משה) and you have the Name, HaShem (השם). They will set out to discover the name. When will the people recognize Moshe? When they cross the Sea of Reeds, the Yam Suf. He crossed the Yam Suf, he crossed the waters — then va-ya’aminu ba-Hashem u-v’Moshe avdo, “and they believed in Hashem and in Moshe His servant” (Shemot 14:31): they discovered, they identified Moshe and gave him a name, because until then there was no name — there was no name. How do we know this? In exile, one loses one’s identity.

We live an exile from ourselves. I have said it: we all live in exile — whether it is geographic, or in time, or in events, in the family circle, in the social circle; each of us goes through his own trial of exile, whether we like it or not. The question is how one comes out of this exile. But we need it, in order to develop, in order to fulfill ourselves. We need it just as the seed in the soil: it is from the moment it reaches its state of decay, of annihilation, that it develops and becomes able to produce, abundantly. It is the same with every trial we pass through, and it is in this that exile is a source of flourishing for the Jewish people. For how is it expressed? They did not change their names when they went down to Egypt, they did not change their language — that is, they kept their own identity.

Reuven and Shimon went down to Egypt, and just as they went down, so they came up: Reuven and Shimon came up out of Egypt. Yet we are not speaking of the same Reuven and Shimon who went down and who came up; it is another Reuven and another Shimon who came up. It is as in a family, when we give the name of a loved one to the child who has just been born. The loved one is already in another world, already in the ground, in the dust as well — the body; but the soul, no, it lives on, it still lives. We are going to give it a name. So the child who bears the name of the grandfather, of the ancestor, of the dear one we have lost, is a way of bringing to flourishing, of transforming, of giving another dimension to the one who is no longer among us. So the Reuven and Shimon who came up from Egypt are Reuven and Shimon — let us say — with a coefficient a hundred times greater, two hundred times greater.

It is another dimension. That is how the generations advance. For it is not a matter of curling up on what we are and trying at all costs to remain in that embryonic state. No — one must give life. And for that there is a loss of substance. That is why tonight I am going to focus solely on these first verses of the book of Shemot: Ve-eleh shemot bnei Yisrael, “And these are the names of the children of Israel” (Shemot 1:1). One would think we did not know them. But we do know them! In Parashat Vayigash — if I take Parashat Vayigash — we have already been told how the family of Yaakov was constituted, and all the children, all the children of Yaakov were listed there by name.

Why do I need to be told it again? There too it says ve-eleh shemot bnei Yisrael haba’im Mitzraymah, “these are the names of the children of Israel who came to Egypt” (Bereshit 46:8) — does it not? Let us remember that each time in the book of Bereshit — when Chavah has her son, what does she call him? Kayin: kaniti ish et Hashem, “I have acquired a man with Hashem” (Bereshit 4:1). She gives a meaning to his name. To Hevel she gives no explanation, because his name is his destiny; but each receives a name according to what he is to represent throughout his life, throughout his history. Yishmael also has a name according to this; Esav too has a name according to the part he will play in history; and all the children of Yaakov have a name in relation to the mission, the function, the attributes they possess and must realize around them.

That is why, each time a name is given, a meaning, a destiny, is attached to it. One does not choose a name because it sounds nice or for any such reason; it must be tied to an emblematic figure, or to a meaning in life that we are determined to perpetuate at all costs. And that is why preserving the name is so important. Lo shinu et shemam — if they did not change their name, then they preserved their identity, they preserved their attachment, and they will be able to accomplish, to bring to completion, what the others did not do or did not have time to do — it will be done. So I was saying that there is a resemblance between Moshe and Yosef.

Moshe grew up in Pharaoh’s palace. He went out to his brothers: when he grew up, he wanted to know which world he belonged to, what his real identity was. So we are told vayetze el echav, “he went out to his brothers” (Shemot 2:11), and here there are two ways of translating “his brothers.” Ibn Ezra says that he went out to the Egyptians; but the Ramban tells us: no, “to his brothers” means to his Hebrew brothers. He was torn by the double identity he lived within himself, through his name Moshe — the name given by Bat Par’o, Pharaoh’s daughter, and the name given by his real mother, Yocheved. And in the end he chose to place himself in the camp of the persecuted; he took the side of his brothers. And the next day, there he is stepping into a brawl between two Jews, and he says to the aggressor: why do you strike your brother? And the other answers him: watch out — ha-le-hargeni atah omer ka’asher haragta et ha-Mitzri, “do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” (Shemot 2:14) — yesterday.

In other words, in short: if you already want to place yourself in the other camp, you would have to enter our history entirely, and not try to be the referee between the Egyptian camp and the Jewish camp. No? So Moshe understood that he could not yet count on the maturity of his brothers; he preferred to go into exile. And there he too marries the daughter of a priest — of Yitro. Yitro was indeed the one who worshipped all the idols. He was a universal idolater, a lover of all cultures — why not? He is versatile; he is the international idolater. And Moshe marries his daughter. For a descendant of the house of Levi, marrying the daughter of a priest is problematic.

Well, the text wanted to speak of this — and wait: how does he name his two children? Like Yosef, he too. Of the first he says, “for I am a stranger in a strange land,” and he calls him Gershom — he is a stranger there (Shemot 2:22). And the second he calls Eliezer, because he considers that “the G-d of my father is my help and saved me from the sword of Pharaoh” (Shemot 18:4) — for he had been condemned to death for having indeed killed the Egyptian. Now, Yosef began the descent into Egypt for the Jewish people, and Moshe carried out the ascent from Egypt. It is paradoxical that these two leaders of the Jewish people should have had such similar paths in Egypt. And the avowed aim of the Torah is this: there is no going-out of Egypt if Egypt is not wrested from its limits. Mitzrayim — metzar — is a partition, a straitjacket, a closed structure. If we do not succeed in bringing the culture of the other nations out of their straitjacket, then we have done absolutely nothing. So there had to be this marriage between a descendant of the family of Avraham — what is more, of the family of Levi — and the descendants of the priests of the nations. I am not saying anything; I am reading the text. I am simply drawing your attention to this detail, which is not without importance, which is not insignificant at all. But the aim is to go, through the annihilation of the name, to its rediscovery on a universal plane — and this even for the name of G-d. For when Moshe questions himself about his true identity, he asks: Mi anochi, “Who am I?” (Shemot 3:11) — what mission must I fulfill in my life, what is the meaning of my life, why am I here, living this drama between two opposed cultures? He also asks the question in the absolute — and what does he say to Him?

“They will question me about Your name” (Shemot 3:13), about Your identity; they do not know it. These children in Egypt are thoroughly assimilated by now; they themselves have lost their name. And do you know how this loss of identity in Egypt shows itself? From the second chapter — even from the first — we see that everything functions without names. We are not told that it was Amram who separated from his wife Yocheved so as not to have to cast the fruit of their womb into the water. No — nor that it was they who took each other back on the advice of their daughter, who told them: beware, you are serving Pharaoh’s designs by separating and ceasing to bring children into the world. Instead you read: va-yelech ish mi-beit Levi, “a man of the house of Levi went” (Shemot 2:1). Ish — “a man”: the underground, the resistance. There is no name.

“A daughter of Levi” is also a collective. Bat Levi — who is she, this daughter of Levi? We do not know. Who are the meyaldot ha-Ivriyot, the Hebrew midwives? Nothing. What is the Jewish people called? Before, it was Bnei Yisrael. Now it is ha-am, “the people.” That is, Egypt’s avowed aim is to turn the entire enslaved Jewish people into a serial number, a figure — and there is no name; there is no name. Now we understand a marvelous Rashi that introduces this book of Shemot: af al pi she-mena’an be-chayehen bi-shmotam, chazar u-mena’an be-mitatan, lehodia chibatan, “although He had counted them by their names during their lifetime, He counted them again at their death, to make known how dear they were” in the eyes of G-d, “for they were likened to the stars” (Rashi on Shemot 1:1).

She-motzi’an u-machnisan be-mispar u-vi-shmotam, “whom He brings out and brings in by number and by their names”: He brings them out by their number, by their serial figure, but when He brings them back, He brings them back bi-shmotam, by their names. So it is no longer a number; it is a name that takes its place, as the verse says: ha-motzi be-mispar tzeva’am, le-chulam be-shem yikra, “He who brings out their host by number calls each of them by name” (Yeshayahu 40:26). He who brings out, by number, their whole host, their whole constellation — He counted them at the beginning; but when He must call them to gather them, it is not by number, not by the serial figure that He gathers them — no, it is by name that He calls them. So we understand why such importance is given to naming the family of Yaakov, which indeed numbered seventy persons at its descent — and we have said that this is the number that gathers, that concentrates within itself all the nations. Yet the text cites only the twelve children of Yaakov by name, to tell us: just as they are, just as they went down with their name — despite all the efforts deployed by Pharaoh to strip them of any identity — so they would come back up out of Egypt with their name, with their language, their power of communication with others, with beings and things. And to be able to say this, there is also the verb I mentioned at the outset: haba’im.

“And these are the names of the children of Israel haba’im,” who are coming. You see: names that walk, names that come. It does not say ve-eleh bnei Yisrael haba’im, “these are the children of Israel who are coming,” and then ve-eleh shemotam, “and these are their names.” No. There is a midrash which says that in reality it is the names of the Bnei Yisrael that went down into Egypt. What matters is not the children of Israel themselves, but the function each one fulfilled — that is, the mission each had to carry out through his exile. That is what was important. Each had to set out to discover this name that he bore in a raw state, perhaps — or rather, that he had not yet realized — and he had to develop it and bring it to fruition. And how is it to be realized? Through the verb bo, to come.

“To come”? I told you: haba’im. But haba’im — we already know it. That too is in Parashat Vayigash. In Parashat Vayigash we were already told of the children of Yaakov, when they went down with him to Egypt: ba’u Mitzraymah, “they came to Egypt.” Now, here, the text takes it up again, saying haba’im, “who are coming.” They are in the process of coming — yet they have already come! It should have said: these are the names of the children of Israel who have already come to Egypt. No: they are arriving now. What is the meaning of this “coming”? I mentioned to you that first function which G-d, at creation, gave to man, by presenting the animals to him, by making them pass before him.

But how does the Midrash explain vayave el ha-adam, “He brought them to the man” (Bereshit 2:19)? He presented them to the man, He had them come before the man, He had them file past the man. No — the Midrash says something that will, in a way, alarm us, frighten us: ba aleihem. It means that in reality he tried — let us say it, in quotation marks — to mate with them, to play with them, but he did not succeed; he was not satisfied, he did not feel the requisite desire. And at that point he had to discover it through a human being. Now, do not imagine that there really took place an intimate relationship of that kind between man and the serpent, between man and the lion, between man and the dog.

No. Bo is indeed intimate knowledge. A woman is known intimately only when one unites with her. But this intimate knowledge — man did it in order to discover or define the essence of each animal and give it a name: to say what its attributes would be, what its functions are, how it is indispensable to the whole of creation. That is the meaning of bo. Where do we get this meaning? You know, first of all, the conjugal act, the carnal act proper, is called bi’ah […] — to come. Now: when Moshe is sent to Pharaoh, He says to him Bo el Par’o, “Come to Pharaoh” (Shemot 10:1). One would not expect Him to say Bo el Par’o, “come to Pharaoh”; He ought to have said Lech el Par’o, “go to Pharaoh.”

What does it mean? So: “come to Pharaoh.” The commentators say that Moshe was afraid of presenting himself before Pharaoh once again. The last time he had presented himself and had got nothing out of it; so now he was afraid of the abuse Pharaoh was going to inflict on him. But others took another approach. This Bo el Par’o means: come with me to Pharaoh, accompany me to Pharaoh. For know that wherever you go, I am with you. I accompany you wherever you are, in all the situations in which you find yourself. Do not think that you are abandoned to your fate, left to yourself. Know that I am at your side.

Bo — accompany me. “Accompany me” means: be truly My associate, My partner in all that I undertake; trust Me. And being in exile, living through a drama in the family, being disoriented — yes, it is true: one loses one’s compass, one loses one’s footing, one is on the point of losing one’s faith. And He tells me: take heed — anochi ered imcha Mitzraymah, “I will go down with you to Egypt” (Bereshit 46:4); do not think that I will abandon you when you find yourself in Egypt. You have a function to fulfill, even in this “wilderness of the nations.” The question is always to distinguish between the first descent and the second descent. There is always a nuance: ish u-veito ba’u, “they came with Yaakov, each man and his household” (Shemot 1:1) — coming with Yaakov, coming with one’s family. This is what is called a double coming.

There is haba’im and there is ba’u. The first coming is a coming of exploration: it is timid, it is passive; one undergoes it; one has gone down, one finds oneself in a situation we did not want, and we do not know what to do. But we do not give up. The second coming — the second coming is when one takes the situation upon oneself and fights to come out of it and to realize one’s own identity through the mission one has fulfilled. And that is why, in Chassidic language, the bi’ah rishonah, the first coming, is called female, feminine, and the second bi’ah is called male, masculine. Why? Because the first is passive, it is waiting, and that is the property of the feminine. But the second is no longer like the first. In the second coming there is assurance, there is a will to master, to accomplish something; one goes on the offensive and does not remain in a state of waiting. And that is why the text spoke of the names haba’im, haba’im Mitzraymah — the names that go down into Egypt. They go down, and, as I said a moment ago, there will be a state of disappearance, of dissolution, of annihilation, in view of the hardships and the persecutions.

But the question is to keep one’s name, to keep one’s identity fiercely. For as long as we have not planted our seed in the soil — the soil in which we have taken root — there will be no development, there will be no flourishing, there will be no resonance to the name we bear. And that is why the history of Israel, the identity of Israel, begins with the exile in Egypt. I will stop here. If you have questions, with pleasure. — Yes, if you will allow me, Kevod HaRav: at the beginning of this lecture you spoke to us about exiles, and you spoke of the exile of time. “Exile of time” — that is life? What is the exile of time?

— You spoke of the exile of time; what is the exile of time? — Well, chol, the weekday, is an exile of time, whereas Shabbat is a time in its own right. Exile of time is when, in the end, you are compressed, stressed by time, and you cannot get out of it. You have an agenda, a schedule that constrains you all day long, and you cannot move; you have to render account. On Shabbat you are in another time. — I see. I wanted to ask two more small questions. You spoke of the generations advancing. I thought there was yeridat ha-dorot, the decline of the generations — not generations that advance, but the decline of the generations. — So let me tell you. What did our Sages say about vayered Yehudah, “Yehudah went down” (Bereshit 38:1)?

Yehudah went down. And why did he go down? That is, his brothers brought him down. They brought him down — why? Because […] he married a Canaanite woman. The future Mashiach! Now, do you know what Mashiach is? Which letters do we find in Mashiach (משיח)? Shem chai (שם חי): he is the one who will make you discover your name, who will give life to your name — shem chai, “a living name.” The Mashiach, precisely — they said he was brought down, but the Midrash says no: […] one must not interpret the verb vayered as a descent, a fall. No: it is a descent for the sake of a conquest. Radah means to conquer; radah means to rule. So that is it, in the end: sometimes one must agree to make certain concessions in order to climb back up the current as quickly as possible.

Because when one is stubborn, when one persists in a situation, determined to find the solution at all costs, and one does not agree to yield even a little, we risk losing everything — above all in the education of children. — Excuse me, Kevod HaRav, but I still do not understand. On this level, our ancestors were after all of a very different level, far superior to ours. How can we say that we are advancing, when they were of a level incomparable to ours? — Well then, the point is that in the end you have made a separation between the Patriarchs and ourselves. When you say Elokei Avraham, Elokei Yitzchak, Elokei Yaakov, “G-d of Avraham, G-d of Yitzchak, G-d of Yaakov,” do you not regard them as your parents?

— Yes, but as parents who were wiser than I am. — But who dwell in you? Who have planted their seed in you? Are you not the child of Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov? — I understand what you mean. […] One very last small question. You spoke of the daughter — the wife Yosef married — the descendant of a priest, the daughter of a priest. But she was after all the daughter of Dinah — wasn’t it the daughter of Dinah who had been adopted? So she is not really a priest’s daughter. It is the Midrash that says it. — The Midrash says she was adopted — but she was adopted by the kohen On, by a priest.

She is not an Egyptian, she is the daughter of Dinah. No matter — but now she belongs to another culture, she belongs to another belief. She is the daughter of the kohen On. And note one more thing, something for which Yosef himself apologized to his brothers: he changed his name. What was Yosef called in Egypt? Tzafnat Pa’neach. “But why did you abandon your name?” It is as though he were called Christian, or Christophe — “what has happened to you?” He apologized to his brothers for having changed his name. But he had to come through tzafun — Tzafnat comes from the verb tzafun, which means to hide. Tzafun, you know — the hidden matzah of the Seder: that is what tzafun means.

Pa’neach means to unfold, to decode. So there is a hidden meaning to be decoded through Yosef. He who had, in a way, to show the Egyptians that he had changed his name — in reality he covered himself with a code; he borrowed a code. — Thank you very much. — Another question. — Just a small clarification. Good evening, Rav Benizri; […] it is about Yitro, kohen Midyan. — There is no need to identify yourself. — So, about… well, I see it rather […] — this story that he served all the idols, every form of idolatry. As a descendant of Avraham and Keturah, might he not, like Avraham, […] have tried to seek a truth?

And to find this truth he went to see all these idols. And in the end he did join Moshe Rabbeinu, even in the wilderness, even if he did not stay with them; and his descendants, the Kenites, were greatly cherished by the nation of Israel. — I would gladly accept your point of view. Only, there is something that bothers me. How long did Moshe stay with Yitro? Forty years. Hm? Forty years. Forty years — no? — Yes. — So, forty years: one stays with Yitro for forty years. Do you know where Moshe’s staff, with which he performed his wonders, came from? From there — it was there, and it is said that he took it. And how did it come into his possession?

— I don’t know. — It was planted in the garden — in the vegetable garden or the orchard — of Yitro. So we have learned — that is to say, in reality Moshe learned all his Judaism at Yitro’s. Why? Because Yitro was a descendant of whom? Of Midyan. And Midyan was the son of whom? Of Keturah. So he was a descendant of Avraham, and just as Avraham had studied with Shem and Ever, he too had this tradition of Shem and Ever. Only, Yitro had not yet come full circle with all of Avraham’s teaching. He would do so afterward, when the liberation from Egypt came. And that is what it means in reality — because all the cults, all the idols, as I said, were… Come now: people worshipped water, the sea, the sun, the moon, the stars.

What are we going to do? The Torah says that all the idols must be destroyed. Are we going to destroy them? No. Are we going to destroy them? No! We are not going to destroy them. […] It is the garment that was given to them, the divinity that was given to them. They must be taken out of elohim — out of being “gods” — and given the attribute of Hashem, who is the G-d over all the elohim. […] There we are.