Parshas Shemos

In this week's parsha, the Torah tells us how Moshe Rabbeinu was born. Additionally, the Torah tells us how he got his name, Moshe: when Basya, the daughter of Pharaoh, saw his casket floating in the Nile, she reached out and pulled him from the water, naming him Moshe because "from the water he was drawn (meshisihu)". But Moshe was already three months old at that point - didn't he already have a name given to him by his parents? Indeed, the medrash tells us he had no less than ten names in total - so why, throughout the rest of the Torah, is he referred to only as Moshe, the name given to him by the daughter of Pharaoh? Why not by one of his more "Jewish" names?

Perhaps we can answer that the Torah wanted to refer to him by the name that best describes his essence. Basya's choice of a name for him came from her extraordinary and unparalleled action - namely, the act of selflessly pulling an endangered child from the midst of a raging river. With that heroic action, she imbued little Moshe with that special virtue of selflessness. Therefore, the Torah wanted to always refer to Moshe Rabbeinu by that name, so as to emphasize and remind us of his essential trait, embodied in that name: that of selflessly caring for other people, in his capacity as shepherd of Klal Yisroel.

From this we can learn the true definition of a Jewish leader. A true leader of Klal Yisroel is not someone who is in a position of power for his own purposes, for his own glory and advancement; rather, he must be someone who is capable of total selflessness and consideration of others. Only a shepherd who is capable of placing his flock before himself can be a truly effective leader of Hashem's people.

Inspired by the teachings of R' Chaim Shmulevitz.