Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Teachers | Page 7

palaces, erected colossi. He was a worker,
and he made everybody else work. It was in this management of
infinite detail that Moses had been engaged; and while he entered into
it with zest, he knew that the hustling habit can be overdone and its
votaries may become its victims--not only that, but this strenuous life

may turn freemen into serfs, and serfs into slaves.
And now Rameses was dead, and the proud, vain, fretful and selfish
Mineptah ruled in his place. It was worse with the Israelites than ever!
The more Moses thought of it the more he was convinced that it was
his duty to go back to Egypt and lead his people out of bondage. He
himself, having been driven out, made the matter a burning one with
him: he had lost his place in the Egyptian Court, but he would get it
back and hold it under better conditions than ever before!
He heard the "Voice"! All strong people hear the Voice calling them.
And harkening to the Inner Voice is simply doing what you want to do.
"Moses, Moses!"
And Moses answered, "Lord, here am I."
The laws of Moses still influence the world, but not even the orthodox
Jews follow them literally. We bring our reason to bear upon the
precepts of Moses, and those which are not for us we gently pass over.
In fact, the civil laws of most countries prohibit many of the things
which Moses commanded. For instance, the eighteenth verse of the
twenty-second chapter of Exodus says, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to
live." Certainly no Jewish lawyer nor Rabbi, in any part of the world,
advocates the killing of persons supposed to be witches. We explain
that in this instance the inspired writer lapsed and merely mirrored the
ignorance of his time. Or else we fall back upon the undoubted fact that
various writers and translators have tampered with the original
text--this must be so, since the book written by Moses makes record of
his death.
But when we find passages in Moses requiring us to benefit our
enemies, we say with truth that this was the first literature to express
for us the brotherhood of man.
"Thou shalt take no gift: for the gift blindeth the wise and perverteth
the words of the righteous." Here we get Twentieth-Century Wisdom.

And very many passages as fine and true can be found, which prove for
us beyond cavil that Moses was right a part of the time, and to say this
of any man, living or dead, is a very great compliment.
In times of doubt the Jewish people turn to the Torah, or Book of the
Law. This book has been interpreted by the Rabbis, or the learned men,
and to meet the exigencies of living under many conditions, it has been
changed, enlarged and augmented. In these changes the people were
not consulted. Very naturally it was done secretly, for inspired men
must be well dead before the many accept their edict. To be alive is
always more or less of an offense, especially if you be a person and not
a personage.
The murmurings against Moses during his lifetime often broke into a
rumble and a roar. The mob accused him of taking them out into the
wilderness to perish. To get away from the constant bickering and
criticisms of the little minds, Moses used to go up into the mountains
alone to find rest, and there he communicated with his god. It was
surely a great step in advance when all the Elohims were combined into
one Supreme Elohim that was everywhere present and ruled the world.
Instead of dozens of little gods, jealous, jangling, fearful, fretful, fussy,
boastful, changing walking-sticks to serpents, or doing other things
quite as useless, it was a great advance to have one Supreme Being,
dispassionate, a God of Love and Justice, "with whom can be no
variation, neither shadow that is cast by turning." This gradual
ennobling of the conception of Divinity reveals the extent to which
man is ennobling his own nature.
Up to within a very few years God had a rival in the Devil, but now the
Devil lives only as a pleasantry. Until the time of Moses, the God of
Sinai was only the God of the Hebrew people, and this accounts for His
violence, wrath, jealousy, and all of those qualities which went to make
up a barbaric chief, including the tendency of His sons and servants to
make love to the daughters of earth.
It is probable that the idea of God--in opposition to a god, one of many
gods--was a thought that grew up very gradually in the mind of Moses.
The ideal grew, and Moses grew with the ideal.

Then from God being