What Were Moses’ Credentials?
Why was Moses chosen to lead the Jewish people out of Egypt, and be their most important leader in history? Was it because he was smart? Charismatic? Handsome? Humble? Persuasive? He may or may not have had the above qualities, but the Torah does not allude to any of these qualities, as the reason he was chosen to lead.
Before G-d appeared to him at the burning bush, all the Torah tells us about Moses is three short episodes. It is therefore logical to assume that, perhaps, those stories give a clue as to the reason he was chosen. Indeed, all three stories share a common theme: Moses could not stand by silently while others were being oppressed. Moses consistently protected the oppressed from the oppressor.
The first story reads as follows:
Now it came to pass in those days that Moses grew up and went out to his brothers and looked at their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian man striking a Hebrew man of his brothers.
He turned this way and that way, and he saw that there was no man; so he struck the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. (Exodus 2:11-12)
Moses was raised in the Egyptian palace as the adopted son of Pharaoh's daughter. When seeing the Egyptian hit the Jew, he could have looked the other way and returned to his comfortable life in the palace. But Moses could not ignore the suffering of his Jewish brother. He intervened at great risk to himself (when Pharaoh heard the story he tried to have Moses killed and Moses was forced to flee to Midian).
The second episode occurred the following day:
He went out on the second day, and behold, two Hebrew men were quarreling, and he said to the wicked one, "Why are you going to strike your friend?" (ibid. 13)
It is natural to protect a member of one’s own group against an outsider (as when Moses protected a Jew from an Egyptian), yet in the second story Moses intervened to protect a Jew from a member of his own group. When the oppressor is a member of one’s own group, the natural instinct to rally in support of one’s own group in the face of a challenge from the outside, is not in play, and thus it is easier to ignore. But Moses did not hesitate to intervene.
The third episode:
Moses fled from before Pharaoh. He stayed in the land of Midian, and he sat down by a well.
Now the chief of Midian had seven daughters, and they came and drew [water], and they filled the troughs to water their father's flocks.
But the shepherds came and drove them away; so Moses arose and rescued them and watered their flocks. (ibid. 15-17)
Moses had just arrived as a refugee in a foreign land. He saw how the shepherds of Midian harassed the female shepherds. Both parties in the dispute were strangers. The natural tendency would be to lie low and mind one’s own business.
Moses intervened.
All we know about Moses before he was chosen is that he could not ignore the cruelty of oppression. Moses stood with the oppressed not only when an outsider oppressed his brother, not only when one of his brothers was oppressed by his fellow brother, but also when a stranger was oppressed by a complete stranger.