Why Moses Resists Being Chosen to Lead

This week’s reading of Va’era (Exodus 6:2 – 9:35) relates how Moses goes about putting the squeeze on Pharaoh and extracting the children of Israel like a bad debt. But let’s look first at the background: at the character of Moses as revealed in the previous week’s reading (Exodus 1:1 – 6:1) and specifically at his persistent refusal to undertake his mission. His opposition to God’s demand takes the art of argument with the Almighty—the special gift that, as I’ve noted earlier, distinguishes both Abraham and Moses as the two great founders of the Jewish people—beyond the insistence on justice to a whole new level of recalcitrance.