Moses, Joseph, and a Newspaper in Amsterdam

A few days after October 7, I left my family in the bomb shelter at our home in Israel and flew to America to rally support for Israel during those dark and painful days. Leaving Israel right then was difficult. Most planes were grounded, the country was in chaos, and so I took the only flight that was available. My route took me through Amsterdam, where I found myself stuck for twelve hours waiting for a connecting flight to Boston. I was exhausted and overwhelmed. Some of my friends had lost their sons in battle. The fighting in southern Israel was still raging, and Hamas terrorists remained at large. The grief, rage, and helplessness weighed heavily on me, as it did on so many Jews.

Trying to distract myself, I walked into a bookstore in the terminal and picked up a book by Jordan Peterson. At the register, the cashier handed me a free copy of the Financial Times, part of a promotion. The sight of that paper infuriated me; its constant hostility toward Israel, even as Israelis were being murdered, sickened me. I surprised the cashier by loudly refusing to take the paper. “I don’t want that antisemitic piece of trash!” Then, on impulse, I immediately changed my mind and said I would take the paper after all—so I could throw it in the trash where it belonged. The cashier didn’t like that, and the whole exchange grew awkward as I demanded the paper and then shoved it straight into the garbage – as nearly fifty people stared at me.

I sat down in the terminal afterward to collect myself. A few minutes later, a woman walked past me. Without stopping, almost whispering so no one else could hear, she said, “Am Yisrael Chai.” “The people of Israel live.” And then she kept walking. She had been standing there the whole time, one of the silent onlookers. She was a Jew. She had seen my kippah, seen my public stand. But she had been too afraid to openly identify with me, too afraid to let anyone around her know she was Jewish. That brief whisper was all she dared offer.

Who was that woman? And why was she so afraid to stand publicly with her people?

I thought of this story recently as I studied the final verses of Deuteronomy, which describe the death of Moses:

The greatest prophet in Israel’s history, the man who spoke to God face-to-face, is buried outside the Land of Israel in an unmarked grave. Why? Why was Moses, who dedicated his life to leading Israel to the Promised Land, denied burial there?

The question becomes even more poignant when we compare Moses to Joseph. Joseph, who spent most of his life in Egypt, did merit burial in the Land of Israel. When the Israelites left Egypt, the Bible records:

Centuries later, when the conquest of the land was complete, Joseph’s dying wish was fulfilled:

Why was Joseph’s body brought home, while Moses – Israel’s greatest leader – was left behind? The Sages, troubled by this question, make a fascinating distinction between Joseph and Moses.

Even while he was enslaved in Egypt, Joseph openly identified himself with the Land of Israel. When Potiphar’s wife accused him before her household, she called him a “Hebrew man” (Genesis 39:14). Later, in prison, Joseph declared to Pharaoh’s butler, “I was stolen from the land of the Hebrews” (Genesis 40:15). Joseph made it clear: he belonged to the people of Israel and to their land. For that reason, God rewarded him. His bones, his atzamot—a Hebrew word that means both “bones” and “essence”—were brought back to rest in Israel.

Moses, by contrast, did not. When he first fled Egypt and arrived in Midian, he helped rescue the daughters of Jethro from hostile shepherds. Grateful, they reported to their father, “An Egyptian man saved us” (Exodus 2:19). Moses heard himself described this way and said nothing. He allowed himself to be identified with Egypt, a foreign land. And so, taught the Sages, his atzamot, his essence, was denied burial in Israel.

Joseph and Moses were both far from home. Both lived out their lives in exile. But Joseph’s heart was anchored in the land of Israel, while Moses allowed himself to be defined as an Egyptian. The difference was not geography but orientation — where they placed their essence, their longing, their identity.

Yehuda HaLevi captured this struggle in his famous words: “My heart is in the east, and the rest of me at the edge of the west. How can I taste the food I eat? How can it give me pleasure… If only I could gaze on the dust of our ruined Holy Place.” Centuries later, Reb Nachman of Breslov said something strikingly similar: “Wherever I go, I am always only going to the land of Israel. I am only here in Breslov temporarily.” Both taught that even when the body is far from Zion, the heart and the journey must remain directed there. Exile is not only a physical condition; it is a test of where one’s loyalties and longings lie.

This is not just a story from the past. It is a question that confronts every Jew today. Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik once described the modern Jew who treats his Judaism as an accident of fate, something forced on him by history. “The modern Jew does not try to forge his Jewish destiny but accepts it. Perhaps he does not really accept it, but sees it as foisted upon him… The modern Jew tries to hide from his Judaism.” Like Moses in Midian, too many Jews accept being labeled as something else, or shrink into the background rather than stand proudly as part of Am Yisrael. Since October 7, every Jew has faced the same choice: will we stand openly with our people, embrace our heritage and identity, or shrink into the shadows, letting others define who we are?

That is the struggle I saw in Amsterdam. A Jewish woman walked past me, whispering the eternal words, “Am Yisrael Chai.” The words were true, but whispered in secret, as if she were ashamed of them. Joseph would have spoken them aloud. Moses, at least in that one moment, stayed silent. Each of us must decide which path we will take.

Today, standing proudly as a Jew and as an Israeli requires courage. Across Europe, Israelis are regularly attacked simply for being Israeli. In one recent incident, an Israeli man was assaulted at the Santa Monica Pier, a popular tourist destination west of downtown Los Angeles, for daring to wear a Star of David necklace. Small acts of pride – wearing a kippah, speaking Hebrew, openly declaring allegiance to the people of Israel – can provoke hostility. But these are exactly the choices that define us. True courage is standing visibly, without apology, refusing to let fear dictate whether we declare who we are.

I pray that the woman in Amsterdam has found the courage to lift her voice, to stand openly with her people, to walk with her head held high. Because silence is not an option. To stand with Israel is not something to whisper under one’s breath. It must be declared boldly. The people of Israel live – and we must live as a people who stand tall, unafraid, and proud of who we are.