Moshe attempts to break up a fight between two Jews in the Torah reading for Parshas Shemos, and he finds that they resist his influence, saying to him “will you kill me, like you killed the Egyptian?“ (Ex. 2:14). He seems shocked to find that they know about this history, commenting “so the matter is known“.
Rashi explains the significance of his statement: on one level, it means that people are aware of what happened previously, that the day before, Moshe had killed an Egyptian, who had been striking a Jewish slave. On another, related level, it means: now it is known what is keeping the Jews from being redeemed.
The second part is based on a midrash, which provides more detail: “ since there is lashon hara, negative speech, among them, how can they be deserving of redemption?”
This seems difficult to understand. The laws of lashon hara allow for reporting important facts that are necessary for society’s protection. Moshe could hardly have expected that the fact that he had killed someone would not be significant information that would be considered important to share. Is this really the prohibited kind of lashon hara that should prevent the nation from freedom?
The answer seems to lie in a more accurate definition of lashon hara, which is not simply about relaying information, but about how it is framed. Of course, it was true that Moshe had killed an Egyptian prior to this. But what was the context of that event? Was Moshe simply a homicidal maniac, likely to kill anyone he encounters on a whim, or anyone who disagrees with him in any way?
Moshe had acted to defend the innocent, to protect the oppressed from an aggressor who was trying to harm him. Yet, here were two members of his own nation ready to portray that without its crucial context, as if Moses was simply a murderer. People who talk like that, who think like that, are lost. They cannot tell their protectors from their attackers; there is no moral clarity.
Moshe’s modern-day descendants can relate. The state of Israel moves in response to the most brutal acts of terrorism and savagery imaginable, and is accused of wanton genocide.
A world that cannot see the difference between self-defense and vicious terrorism is a world that has exiled itself to a moral wasteland. It is the same mindset that sees nothing unusual about a deal where one side is looking to recover kidnapped babies and another is looking to free unrepentant mass murderers serving multiple life sentences. A society such as that has trapped itself, and exposed itself to the same dangers. Anyone looking to make sense of that can ask Moshe: to him, the matter is known.
Rabbi Feldman
