“Minding Other People’s Business”

July 2, 2004
Rabbi Jeremy Barras

Someone once observed half humorously and half complaingly that plastic surgeons can do almost anything with a nose except keep it out of other people’s business. A research team in London once asked people they interviewed what they thought was the most important thing in the world. They came back with the answer – minding your own business. This may be true – the ability to mind one’s own business is a mandatory social virtue. There is the neighbor who wishes to preserve the neighborly feeling, the relative who expects to find the warm welcome mat waiting on the next visit, and so they keep other people’s business private. Indeed each of, us at the point where our lives intersect the lives of others must cultivate the fine art of minding our own business. We must learn to draw the delicate distinction between sympathetic “friendly” interest that brings people closer, and the unsolicited preying and uninvited meddling that puts an intolerable strain on even the finest relationships. The fine art of minding one’s own business constitutes one of the required courses in the university of life.

And yet one of the hallmarks of maturity is the ability to widen the circle of our active concern to the point where it embraces not only our immediate business, but also the business of other people. This is what Aristotle meant when commenting on the status of man – “If a man is interested in himself, he is very small; if he is interested in his family, he is larger; if he is interested in his community, he is larger still.” Aristotle is saying that the bigger the man, the less likely he is to mind his own business.
Let’s see how this comment applies to our Passover hero, Moses. He seems to have been able to do almost anything, except mind his own business. During his most impressionable years, he was weaned by his own mother who was hired by Pharaoh’s daughters. We can only assume that this mother taught the child his true identity as a descendent, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah.

But the time inevitably comes when Moses must be returned to the palace of Pharaoh by his daughter. The Torah says, “She brought him unto Pharaoh’s daughters and he became her son.” It was she who called him Moses. It was through her that Moses enjoyed all sorts of privileges – wealth, security and status. Compared to the ordinary Egyptian, he had an almost preferred status. Compared to the lot of his fellow Israelites, Moses was not in a palace, but a Heaven. There was plenty going on in the palace too. There were banquets and royal visits, magicians, dancers, entertainers and diversions of all sorts. What an opportunity for a Hebrew child whose mother had to conceal him at birth to keep him from being murdered by a royal decree. This is the stuff that Hollywood loves!

But you see Moses had one special vice that kept him from enjoying the royal splendor. He simply could not mind his own business! He heard the royal decree aimed at the Hebrew slaves. He may have seen the plans of the next project to which the slaves would be assigned. He surely heard the groanings of his “true” people and saw the lash marks left by the taskmasters’ whip. All his security in the palace vanished. His wealth dissolved, his privileges turned into torments. Somehow the convictions seized hold of Moses and he realized the business of his brethren was his business too. The Torah teaches, “And it came to pass in those days when Moses grew up that he went out amongst his brethren and saw their burdens.” The die was cast. He was beginning to look at dangerous sights – human burdens. And when he begins to look at the burdens of humanity he begins to understand that he is in a bigger business than he ever imagined existed.

The first day’s inspection tour was hardly a dull one. He hadn’t gotten far when he saw an Egyptian smiting an Israelite, one of his brethren. In that slave, Moses saw a piece of himself. Caution may have whispered to Moses, “look away, mind your own business.” But Moses wasn’t listening and he looked ahead and attacked the Egyptian and struck him down – and then hid the body in the sand.
The second day was equally exciting. Now he saw an incident involving two Israelites quarreling after one Israelite struck another. Moses asked him, “why would he would smite his own brother” – to which the man replied, “Who made you a ruler and judge over us?” That was the biblical way of saying, “mind your own business.”
 
This taunt taught Moses two quick lessons. He was not to expect gratitude for his passionate sense of justice. And, minding other people’s business can be expensive. People too found about his smiting of the Egyptian taskmaster. Soon he learned that Pharaoh was determined to kill him. Pharaoh must have thought, “Moses, after all I did for him – all his palace education wasted – all his training down the Nile – so Moses runs away from Egypt and dwelt in the land of Midian, eventually choosing to sit down and rest beside a well. It was a nice quiet place to sit and contemplate the high price of minding other people’s business.

But Moses’ quiet is soon disturbed. The narrative of the Torah continues, “now the priest of Midian had seven daughters and they came and drew water to water their father’s flocks and the shepards came and drove them away. But Moses stood up and helped and watered their flocks.” Poor Moses, when will he ever learn? This time there were no Israelites involved and no brethren. These young ladies were total strangers, but that’s how it goes when a man cannot mind his own business. He soon loses the ability to discriminate between one of his brethren and the Midianites. Injustice is injustice regardless of the color of the victim’s skin or the nature of his creed.

While all of this was going on far away, Pharaoh must have been enraged, some Hebrews suspicious, and the Midianite shepards affronted by the gall of a single stranger. But God likes a man who looks after the defenseless and the downtrodden. And from the burning bush, God gives Moses one of the biggest piece’s of somebody else’s business to mind that any human has ever received. Go back to Egypt Moses! Confront the Pharaoh that wants to kill you! Talk to the Israelites about freedom!

Neither Pharaoh nor the Israelites will take kindly to you, Moses, but from now on, their business is your business.

From here, the history is well known. It is interesting to speculate, however, about what would have happened if Moses indeed minded his own business and if he had embraced the palace and all it stood for. Of course we shall never know – but at least this much we can say for certain – we would not be talking about Moses today because he would have no claim upon our memory. And most assuredly, the intervening history of man would have been decisively different.

We learn from Moses and his adventures that when we see our brethren in need of aid, not only should we not mind our own business, but we should mind their business. We further learn that when we see even the stranger among us in a similar predicament, we should react as Moses did at the well when he aided the Midianite women. For the Torah teaches what we emphasize especially this week;” You too were once strangers in a foreign land.” We, like no other people, are particularly familiar with playing the role of the stranger.

We were strangers in 1943, in Denmark, where it was learned that the Nazis were planning a lightening raid upon the Jews of that country on the first day of Rosh Hashanah. The Nazis chose that day because they knew that many of the Jews would be gathered in synagogues across the country. The day before though, the chief rabbi of the Copenhagen synagogue, who had been informed of the Nazi plan, warned his congregants of the impending raid and told them to leave the synagogue immediately and to spread the word to every Jew. Not only did Jew warn fellow Jew – but throughout the day Christian policemen, mailmen, taxi drivers, shop keepers, doctors, teachers, and students went about quietly passing the warning to their Jewish friends and acquaintances. One particular man, Jurgen Knudsen, upon hearing the news, went to a phone booth and proceeded to call every Jewish name he could find in the phone book.
What might have been in Europe had more people been willing to mind our business?

While we cannot ever come to grips with the tragedies that have befallen our people throughout our centuries of Exile, we can at least extract certain occasions where, like Moses, individual courage and willingness to mind other people’s business contributed to the betterment of our world. We have seen such acts throughout our history, and in our own day, and even in our own congregation. When we look around at what we are doing here and see ourselves rolling up our sleeves to help work on a Habitat for Humanity house, and when we all pitch in on Mitzvah Day to help countless individuals throughout Charlotte, and when we pray for the people of Israel and contribute to their welfare, and when we feel relief that the Iraqi people are no longer oppressed by a murderous tyrant – we are minding other people’s business when it is necessary to do so. We then provide friendship and comfort to the weak and downtrodden, to the afflicted and the enslaved, or to someone who simply needs a helping hand.
During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln received thousands of appeals for pardon from soldiers involved in military discipline. Each appeal was supported by letters from influential people. One day a single sheet came before him, an appeal from a solider without any supporting documents.

“What!” exclaimed Lincoln. “Has this man no friends, no one to speak for him? I will be his friend.”

As we celebrate Passover, let us be thankful that Moses was willing to mind our business so that we could enjoy the taste of freedom and salvation. And let us remember that while we may be free now, there will always be those who require us to mind their business. May be find the courage and commitment within us to meet these challenges so that this year we may truly say:

Me-Avdut l’cherut - Me ganut l’shevach – mimalchut harahsah l’malchut shamayim.

Our history moves from slavery toward freedom. Our narration begins with degradation and rises to dignity. We shall defy the rule of evil and advance toward the kingdom of God.

Kein Yehi Ratzon - Amen