Musar sobre Êxodo 2:20

This also helps explain Yitro's question "ואיו, למה זה עזבתן את האיש" (Exodus 2,20) "where is he, why did you abandon the man?" The sequence should have been , למה זה עזבתן את האיש, ואיו, "why did you abandon the man, and where is he?" Then the letter ו would be justified as a letter denoting something additional. Yitro was not clear whether he should understand the words איש מצרי literally, i.e. an Egyptian, or whether he should read a more profound meaning into it as we have just described. Therefore, he said "call him so he can eat bread." These words would be appropriate both if the man was indeed an Egyptian in which case he deserved to be rewarded at least with a meal. If, on the other hand, איש מצרי meant what we have just described, then the words "call him and he shall eat bread" is a euphemism for offering Moses one of Yitro's daughters' hand in marriage, since clearly one of them was meant to become Moses' wife. This is why he said ואיו, the letter ו both at the beginning and at the end of the word אי "where?" That letter could then be applied to either possibility. It would then be a reminder of G–d's original question "אי" "where is your brother Abel?" (Genesis 4,9) Another possibility is the one mentioned by the Zohar, that the letter ו is symbolic of the sign, אות that G–d gave Cain, i.e. a letter from the holy Torah, so that no one who came across him would kill him as a murderer. (Rosenberg Montreal edition page 42)

Rabbi Berechyah means to tell us that from the moment Moses had become an איש, he was headed towards his ultimate achievement. His early youth foreshadowed his career. This is true in spite of the fact that at one point the Midrash Shemot Rabbah 45,5 comments that when Moses began to prophesy he was a relative child, i.e. immature in the ways of prophecy, since he had asked to be shown G–d's glory. Moses progressed constantly, until at the end of his life the Torah testifies that no one ever again attained his stature as a prophet and a man of G–d. The reason that he is described as איש, a title denoting that he was someone of stature already when he was a young man, is to indicate that sparks of G–dliness already came forth from him, such as when -as an act of jealousy on behalf of G–d- he killed the Egyptian who had tortured a Jew. He displayed his close attachment to G–d already at that time. Our sages expressed this thought when they said that Moses slew the Egyptian by uttering the Ineffable Name of G–d when cursing the Egyptian (Midrash Hagadol Exodus 2,20). We observe that even when engaged in an act at the beginning of his spiritual development, Moses is already described in a complimentary fashion, –