The Significance of the Burning Bush

Sponsored With Love by Elinor Goldberg in Honor of Edythe and Jerry Margolin

 

In Parshat Shmot 3:2 “An angel of God appeared to Moshe in a blaze of fire from amid the bush. Moshe saw that behold the bush was burning in the fire but the bush was not consumed.”

 

Why did God formulate his revelation in this manner?

 

According to Shmot Raba 2:1 Moshe was afraid that the Egyptians would really destroy Israel. Therefore God showed him a burning fire which was never consumed. God said: “Just as the bush burns with fire but is never consumed, so Egypt will never destroy Israel.”

 

Nehama Leibowitz brings the opinion of Rabbi Jacob Anatoli who adds that the bush represented a lowly people tested in the fire of suffering. In every generation we are threatened with destruction but His seed and His name outlives all. Such a phenomenon cannot be explained naturally, only in terms of the will of God above.

 

Today in Israel we are again under fire. Yet just as the bush was not consumed we will not let the fire destroy the Jewish nation or the State of Israel.