Sips From the Well by Rabbi Dovid Sipper - Beshalach, 5772

The gratitude that one has towards the person who saves one’s life is enormous. Even though nothing could repay the act of kindness that the savior did, the saved would nonetheless do anything that his savior would request to somehow express his thanks. So imagine if the hero would approach the man whom he saved, a loan officer in a large bank, and ask for assistance getting a moderate mortgage. The beneficiary would certainly be willing to help the man who saved his life, but would the savior ever make the man swear to it? Certainly the gratitude would be enough to ensure that the mortgage would be taken care of, and thus the hero demanding such a guarantee would be rather odd. And yet we see just the thing in this week’s parsha. As the newly freed Jewish people begin their journey towards the Land of Cana’an, the Torah tells us of their first route. Hashem took them on a bit of a detour in order to spare them from war right away, even though they were armed. In the middle of this military report, the Torah tells us about a particular parcel that Moshe was carrying with him: “And Moshe took with him the bones of Yosef, for he had sworn the children of Yisrael, saying ‘Hashem will remember you, and you will bring my bones from here with you’” (Sh’mos 10:4). Though Yosef made his brothers swear that they would take his bones to be buried in the Land of Cana’an, Moshe is credited with actually doing so because he was the only one that took the trouble to do it. The Medrash explains that while the rest of the Jewish people were getting rich “borrowing” whatever they could from their Egyptian neighbors, Moshe was busy finding Yosef’s bones and didn’t amass any personal wealth for himself in the mad dash to leave after the last plague. This is why the verse singles out Moshe for having taken out Yosef’s bones. If so, asks the Oznayim L’Torah, why does the verse then mention that the bones were taken out because of Yosef made his brothers swear to do so? If Moshe’s act was so selfless that he receives all the credit, why minimize Moshe’s chesed by saying that there was a preexisting oath on the Jewish people to take out Yosef’s remains? Furthermore, why does the verse add that Moshe took the bones “with him?” Obviously if Moshe took them they were with him! As shown from the parable of the loan officer above, the beneficiary of such a great kindness does not need to be reminded about having to pay back his benefactor. Yosef’s brothers owed a tremendous amount of gratitude towards him; he brought them down to Egypt to escape famine, settled them in Egypt’s most fertile land, supplied their families with food for many years and even spared them from taxes. Who of the brothers wouldn’t see to it that Yosef would receive whatever he would ask of them? However, even thought the beneficiary must feel such desire to fulfill the request, the benefactor can’t expect such. Yosef might have saved all of his brothers and their families from starvation, but he couldn’t think of himself as therefore being entitled to any special treatment as a result. Therefore, he made his brothers take an oath that they would take his bones with them back to Eretz Yisrael, because he couldn’t expect that they would do any different to him because of what he did for them. This is why, says Rabbi Moshe Feinstein zt”l, that the oath is mentioned in this verse about Moshe taking the bones. The verse isn’t focusing on the obligation that the brothers had to fulfill Yosef’s request, but rather on the simple fact that such a great man like Yosef would even think to require his brothers to swear to what they would do. That a benefactor would be so humble as to not expect any special treatment is the lesson Moshe took, and that is also why the verse says that he took the bones “with him,” because this lesson was so important that Moshe wanted it close to him at all times. Perhaps this is why they say to \"make no bones about it.\"