After many adventures the fugitive arrived in the land of Midian, where he settled, having found food and shelter and work as a shepherd. He married a native girl—the daughter of the priest Yitro. Two sons were born to them, Eliezer and Gershom, and they led a peaceful, idyllic existence, devoid of problems, dangers or conflicts. Did he sometimes remember his parents, his persecuted brethren? Apparently not. At least nothing in the texts or legends alludes to it. Their fate was no longer his concern. A vast desert separated him from them and he was content. Whatever was happening there, in faraway Egypt, no longer interested him. He took care of his family, of his flock, and that was enough for him to fill his time and justify his life as a man. Strange, for forty years Moses lived in his new adopted land without ever worrying about his family’s fate. It seems unlikely somehow. What had taken place inside him? How is one to explain this sudden indifference? He who had risked his fortune, his freedom, his future to save one single life—why didn’t he at least try to ascertain whether his people, an entire people, was still suffering or had been allowed some respite? This behavior does not fit in with Moses’ temperament or with the logic of the events: to have opted for Judaism, at the price of a real sacrifice, only to give it up, just like that? It doesn’t make sense.

There is one plausible explanation: Moses was disappointed in his Jews, and on several levels. They had not resisted, nor had they agreed to rebel. Hasevel shesavlu bemitzraim—They had settled into their “tolerance of suffering”: resignation. (Lisbol, infinitive of shesavlu, means both to suffer and to tolerate.) He may have resented their inability to overcome their internal differences and unite against the enemy; there was too much pettiness, too much envy, too much selfishness. And then, too, they had betrayed him, their benefactor; for that there had been betrayal, he did not doubt. But who had been the informer? Well, let us see. When Moses killed the Egyptian overseer, who else had been present? Only one man: the very Jew whom Moses had saved.

For Moses this must have been a crushing experience—with terrifying implications. Could he have come to the conclusion that the Jews were, after all, not worthy of the freedom he wanted for them? That they had fallen too low, had become too used to servitude to be redeemable? Could that have been the real reason why he had fled the country? Not because of Pharaoh, but because of the Jews? He probably could have soothed the king’s anger. After all, the man he had killed was an obscure overseer and such a crime was not considered terribly serious in ancient Egypt. Surely Moses would have been forgiven. But his fear of Pharaoh was insignificant compared to his disillusionment with the Jews!

Let us follow this hypothesis further and we shall understand why, when he arrived in the land of Midian, he concealed his identity. They assumed he was Egyptian and he chose not to correct their mistake. He was a hidden Jew in search of assimilation, so much so that his second son was not circumcised. Moses, once more, was far removed from his people, though this time deliberately. Nothing is more painful than the sight of victims adopting the behavior and laws of their executioners. If the Jews behaved like the Egyptians, why should Moses be concerned with their fate? He preferred to forget them.