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What Type of Plant was the Burning Bush?
The following information is culled from Chapter 13 of Torah and Flora by Louis I. Rabinowitz.
And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him (Moses) in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush; and he looked and, behold, the bush was burned with
fire, and the bush was not consumed.
There is little to be found within our Written Tradition that can help us in identifying the bush (s'neh in Hebrew) that burned without being consumed. However, our rabbis of old were apparently well acquainted with the type of bush. In Exodus Rabbah (3:2), we are told the bush was commonly used as a garden hedge and grew under all different types of conditions. We are told in the Talmud that the bush had thorns that curved inwards in such a way that "when a person inserts his hand into it, he is unscathed, but when he withdraws it, it lacerates him. (Shabbat67a)." The Jerusalem Talmud (Ma'aserot 48b) tells us the bush produced a berry that was at first red and then turned black. And a Tosefta on Bava Kamma (18:17) says the plant was used as an insecticide. All of this point to the correct identification of the s'neh by the monks of St. Catherine in Sinai as the Rubus Sanctus.
More important than botanical identification of the Burning Bush are the lessons to be learned from the selection of this type of bush over all other
types. Exodus Rabbah (2:9) tells us:
Once a heathen asked Rabbi Joshua ben Korha, "Why did your God appear to Moses in such a lowly type of bush?" The Rabbi answered him,
"If it had been a carob tree or a sycamore, would you not have asked the same question? But, I will answer you. Why in a thorn bush? To teach us there is no place where the Divine Presence is not
to be found, even in a lowly bush."
Email me at karen@njycamps.org and let me know what you think. Reference the subject matter as Teachings.
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