The Power of Small Choices

Parashat Shemot, Exodus 1:1–6:1

By Dave Nichol, Ruach Israel, Needham, MA

In his recent commentary on Parashat B’reisheet (Covenant and Conversation Bereishit 5781), Rabbi Jonathan Sacks z”l identified a pivotal moment in Moses’ life portrayed in this week’s reading:

There is a fascinating phrase in the story of Moses’ early years. He grows up, goes out to his people, the Israelites, and sees them suffering, doing slave labour. He witnesses an Egyptian officer beating one of them. The text then says: ‘He looked this way and that and saw no one’ (vayar ki ein ish, or more literally, ‘he saw that there was no man’, Ex. 2:12).

It is difficult to read this literally. A building site is not a closed location. There must have been many people present. A mere two verses later we discover that there were Israelites who knew exactly what had happened. Therefore, the phrase almost certainly means, ‘He looked this way and that and saw that there was no one else willing to intervene.’

Rabbi Sacks finds here an instance of the “bystander effect,” a psychological phenomenon wherein multiple people observe a crime but none do anything to intervene, possibly because they assume someone else will do so. This is why first aid training teaches someone responding to an injury to identify one person and assign them directly to call an ambulance, instead of just yelling out “call 911” to a whole group of bystanders—because often none of them will! 

Rabban Gamliel may well have been thinking of Moses when he said, “In a place where there are no men (anashim, plural of ish), try to be a man (ish)” (Avot 2:5). This word “ish,” sometimes understood as “leader” or “human being,” is the same word that describes what Moses looked for, but did not see, before taking action. Moses shows himself to be uniquely immune to the bystander effect, a person who fills Rabban Gamliel’s criterion for being a leader. 

We see the same pattern when Moses arrives, alone, at a well in Midian. He observes an injustice, shepherds “driving off” Jethro’s daughters so they could water their flocks first, and his behavior is consistent: seeing injustice, he steps in and comes to the defense of the daughters (Exod 2:17). 

In fact this seems to be Moses’ calling card. When the Israelites regress to idolatry and God announces his intention to destroy them and replace them with Moses’ descendants, there is no one else to stand between God’s wrath and his people. Who stands between God and what he intends to do? Well, Moses does. He steps up, interceding on their behalf (Exod 32:11–14; also Num 16:20–22). Who prefigures Yeshua’s role as intercessor, advocate, and mediator better than Moses?

How to be like Moses . . . or Pharaoh

But how does Moses come to be this way? How does he manage to consistently display this essential trait of leadership, stepping up in situations where there is a need? 

One way to understand how Moses so consistently displays this middah (character trait) is to look at his antagonist, Pharaoh. The king of Egypt is similarly consistent in his refusal to allow the Israelites to leave. 

When God commissions Moses from the burning bush, he says a strange thing: not only will he not influence Pharaoh to let the people go easily, he will do the exact opposite! God will harden Pharaoh’s heart (Exod 4:21) so that he will not let the people go. This raises all kinds of questions. For one, why was poor Pharaoh set up to fail?

If we look closely at the language the Torah uses to describe his stubbornness, however, we see during the earlier plagues that Pharaoh’s heart “becomes strengthened/stiffened” (e.g. vayechezak lev Par’oh in Exod 7:13, 22). Sometimes Pharaoh is clearly the active party, as in Exodus 8:29 where it could be translated “Pharaoh made his heart heavy” (yakhbed Par’oh et libo). But as we continue to the later plagues, the dominant language becomes “Adonai stiffened Pharaoh’s heart” (vaychazek Adonai et lev Par’oh). The commentator Ramban, commenting on Exodus 7:3, notices this pattern as well:

When God says already before the plagues, “I, however, will stiffen his heart so that he will not let the people go,” He is informing Moses of what He is going to do in the last five plagues. God, after all, already knows that Pharaoh will refuse to let them go until he is forced. And indeed, in the last five plagues, and also at the splitting of the sea, it says that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. “Like channeled water is the mind of the king in the LORD’s hand; He directs it to whatever He wishes” (Prov. 21:1).

Ramban implies that once Pharaoh chooses a trajectory, God, in a sense, holds him to it. The reference to “channeled water” is apt: as a stream flows, it cuts a channel in the earth. What starts as a stream over flat ground, given time, can cut through rock, becoming unchangeable, a permanent feature of the landscape. 

So it is with our actions. While you might think that our character determines our actions, the converse is also true: our actions imprint themselves on our character. 

If you think about it, it’s almost obvious: patterns of behavior become harder to change over time. This implies that those first actions, even if small, have outsized importance to one’s character. Maybe when Moses first noticed the Egyptian taskmaster beating an Israelite slave, the future hung in the balance as he decided what to do . . . but the next time at the well, it was a little easier to make that decision.

For Pharaoh, the first plague was his best shot to choose the right way. As each plague went by, and he repeatedly chose fear over faith, pride over humility, his ability to choose—his free will—slipped out of his grasp.

Faithful in small things

On one hand, this is scary: we may have less free will than we thought! Of course psychologists and neuroscientists have suspected this for some time. But on the other hand, it’s empowering to learn that small choices can add up to significant changes. 

This is not only true if we want to emulate this middah of responsiveness and leadership that Moses demonstrates—it applies to any middah that we want to cultivate. To grow as humans we should start by finding small actions that grease the wheels for larger actions. This helps us to understand Yeshua’s teaching that those who are faithful in small things will be entrusted with greater things (Matt 25:14–30; Luke 16:10). 

For example, the mussar teacher Alan Morinis passes on a teaching by Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler applying this approach to the middah of generosity: 

By obligating ourselves to give according to rules and formula, we expose our hearts to repetitive acts of giving that leave their trace on our inner lives. The very act of giving itself ultimately makes us more charitable, merciful, and loving. “Love flows in the direction of giving,” was Rabbi Dessler’s teaching. (Everyday Holiness: the Jewish Spiritual Path of Mussar, 157–58)

This pattern in the life of Moses reveals not only why he was chosen to lead our people, but also what allowed him to succeed as a leader. Be encouraged! Every choice you make can be an inflection point in your life, no matter how small. Take hold of it!