As a child, the Blizzard of 1978 was a dream come true. The damage to power lines and the treacherous driving conditions meant that school was canceled for three weeks. This meant ample time for sledding, drinking hot chocolate, and continual shoveling. The snow drifts were so high they were taller than my head, and the wind blew so hard it literally knocked me over. It was difficult even to walk outside.
Despite these dangerous conditions, my father z"l needed to go to work. On the second day after the snowfall, he set out by foot for Harvard Square to open his wine and cheese store, Joseph Savenor and Sons.
At the end of the fifth day, my father came home by commuter rail. Five days. This had been the longest time that I had been without my dad. Still unable to drive, my mother, brothers, and I marched through the slush to greet him at the station. As the train pulled in, I remember bursting with excitement.
When my father got off the train, he kissed all of us. I will always remember how he picked me up and hugged me. You would've thought that we hadn't seen each other for years.
Looking out the window during the snowstorm last week, I was reminded about this personal story. Moreover, in this week's Torah portion we witness the reunion of Moshe's family. According to the Midrashic work Seder Olam, Moshe had not seen his wife and children for one year. When Moshe "left for work" to serve as Hashem's agent in the Exodus, he sent his wife Zipporah and their two sons, Gershom and Eliezer, back to his father-in-law's house.
Hearing about how Moshe successfully led Israel out of Egyptian slavery and onto the road to the promised land, Yitro, Moshe's father-in-law, assumes that the time has come for the family to be reunited. We can imagine that Moshe's kids cannot wait to hear about their father's adventures in Egypt and how their dad split the Red Sea.
The actual reunion is described as follows: "Moshe went out to meet his father-in-law; he bowed and kissed him; each asked about the other's welfare, and they went into the tent." With his wife and kids standing right there, Moshe only greets his father-in-law.
Clearly something is missing from this biblical encounter. We hear about Moshe's reunion with his father-in-law, but what happened with his wife and kids? About this interaction the Torah is silent.
Two explanations come to mind to deal with this silence. The first possibility may be that the Torah takes for granted that Moshe greets his wife and kids, so it did not need to report on it.
The second solution takes a more literal approach. Picking up on this subtle omission, Ibn Ezra offers an astounding explanation. He asserts that Moshe goes out specifically to meet Yitro because he is a respected leader in his own right, not because he is his father-in-law. And according to this rationale, if it were not for Yitro, Moshe would have not left his work at all to greet his family. So Ibn Ezra concludes that no record exists of Moshe greeting his wife and hugging his sons, because it simply did not happen!
Our knowledge of Moshe's daily schedule following the reunion serves as a clue that the attention Moshe does not show to his family, what I call the "missing hug," is not an isolated oversight, but rather symptomatic of a larger problem. For the very next verse after the reunion reads: "The next morning Moshe sat down to judge the people, and the nation stood before Moshe from the morning until the evening."
Yitro, the concerned father-in-law, notices a problem with Moshe serving as the sole judge for the nation. In an attempt to enlighten Moshe to the fallacy of his ways, Yitro warns his son-in-law: "You will surely get burnt out – you and these people that are with you."
But the Hebrew word for burnt out, naval, has another meaning. In modern Hebrew, naval can be translated as "scoundrel." With this translation, Yitro's words take on a stronger, harsher tone. They would sound something like this: "You are surely acting like a scoundrel to your family by staying out here all day long. And you're making it so that your people not only have to be away from their families to see you, but they also are exposed to your poor example."
Drawing on Yitro's own leadership experience as the head of Midian, he tells Moshe: You are doing a disservice to your people, your family, and yourself by not creating the necessary balance in your life.
It is not my intention to discredit Moshe. On the contrary, I am relieved that the Torah contains portraits of our leaders and ancestors who are not perfect. I only want to show that Moshe is caught in the same bind we face today, namely the conflict between family and work.
Sigmund Freud once said that human beings are motivated by their desire "to love and to work." Freud does not advocate for one or the other, but rather a balance of the two. Maintaining balance between our personal and professional lives is an uphill climb, frequently an uphill battle. Yet balance is crucial because we do not get a second chance at life. Our kids will not remain young, our friends will not always live nearby, and our parents and spouses will not live forever.
With some extra time on our hands due to the snow, let us consider harnessing our energy into hugs. Hugs come in many shapes and sizes: physical hugs take the form of an embrace, verbal hugs are expressed through words of affirmation and appreciation, and silent hugs occur when we listen.
In light of my own experiences with my father's meaningful embrace so many years ago, I will always wonder whether Moshe realized how much he sacrificed by holding back his hug.