Science, Faith, and the Microbiologist Who Became the Patriarch of a Family of Committed Hasidim

During the coldest months of the year, I co-teach a course on the Hebrew Bible at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. This year we’re reading the book of Exodus and grappling with the encounter between Moses and God at the burning bush, which (in Robert Alter’s translation) opens like this:

And Moses was herding the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, priest of Midian, and he drove the flock into the wilderness and came to the mountain of God, to Horeb. And the Lord’s messenger appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of the bush, and he saw, and look, the bush was burning with fire and the bush was not consumed. And Moses thought, “Let me, pray, turn aside that I may see this great sight, why the bush does not burn up.” And the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, and God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, “Moses, Moses.”

This moment of divine revelation is markedly different from any of the earlier ones in Genesis. Unlike with Adam, Noah, and the patriarchs, God seems to test Moses before engaging him in conversation. Earlier episodes have shown Moses to be a man of courage and spiritedness. Now, God will see if he also possesses curiosity: the drive to investigate, to know, and to understand.