He must go on, the father tells his son. He cannot go with him — but the boy must carry on without him, doing everything just as they had done together.

The son says he wants to stay with him.

He must carry the fire — life itself, the father goes on.

These days we are witnesses to images of mothers and fathers from Afghanistan handing their children to soldiers and "passing" them over the wall, abandoning them and, in doing so, amid unbearable pain, saving them. In the photograph we see a father raising his arm, holding in his hand the son he is handing over — like a basket of food, like a gift, like a testimony — to a complete stranger, a soldier in full combat gear, with threatening, lethal weapons.

Jochebed, Moses' mother, did something similar, pushing her son into the waters of the Nile in despair, trying in this way to save him. She abandons him so that he may be saved.

What could drive parents to do something so drastic, so painful?

Another piece of news also spread, seemingly quite the opposite of this one: an Afghan woman who had managed to board one of the evacuation planes went  into labour during the flight. However, the plane's altitude — normal for such a flight, heading to Berlin — created additional complications for an already very difficult birth. The pilot, alerted to the situation, took the risk of descending to a lower altitude, and that decision allowed the story to end happily. The child was finally born. Unfortunately, the mother's condition remains  very serious, and there are fears for her life.

The two stories seem to move in opposite directions, but in fact toward the same goal: the saving of one's own children. In the first we have an upward gesture: a parent lifts the child up to entrust him to a soldier, and so hands him over to life, to a future, to what is denied on this side of the wall. In the second, the protagonist is a soldier, and his gesture is a downward one: hearing a cry of pain and need, he set about descending, with all the risks that descent carries, and made it possible for life to win.

Jochebed abandons Moses  in order to save him. I believe that only a parent can fully understand the pain of such a moment. And yet, within the tragedy of that separation lies a declaration of love: "I am willing to leave you so that you may survive and live." The mother must surely have gazed at the waters of the Nile carrying the basket with her child inside — fearful for his life, and at the same time full of hope that he would be saved by someone as yet unknown to her. Jochebed  יוֹכֶבֶד (Yokheved) means "the glory of God". "The glory of God" is the moment of God's passing-by, the very act of salvation in which the mother takes part.

The child is cast into the water, a symbol of both death and life. Yet the child who could die in the waters of the Nile is instead saved from the water. In the waters he finds life. Moses enters the water in a basket, which in Hebrew is denoted by the same word, tebah, that in the flood narrative we translate as "ark". The Hebrew author deliberately used the technical word for Noah's ark. Hence we can speak of Moses' ark. It is the temple, the Church, the people, the community, the family, the individual as a place of salvation. What could have led to death, through God's intervention gives life, and saves.

The little basket, coated with bitumen and pitch like Noah's ark, is placed among the reeds, which in Hebrew are called suf. In the Hebrew text the Red Sea is called Yam suf, that is, "the Sea of Reeds", the sea of death. The Israelites will cross the sea of reeds, through the sea of death, to the shores of life. Moses is cast into the midst of the reeds, into the midst of death. Cast into death, drawn out into life. Even Moses' name bears the mark of a particular birth. Moses, from the Hebrew verb MSH, would mean "to draw out". The one who is drawn out of the waters of death draws his people out into freedom. But before he can draw others out and set them free, he himself must first be drawn out and set free. The saved one saves. Pharaoh's daughter takes the child with her, but his mother nurses him. This double relationship continues. He is a Jew, but grows up as an Egyptian. He has two mothers, since he had two births. He is radically marked by this duality (Doglio). Everyone who must leave their own family and home, their homeland, is marked by that same duality.

Sooner or later in life, in every good relationship, it becomes necessary to reach the maturity of such a separation — to let life become possible without us. But in the case of Moses, as in the case of the Afghan children, this gesture is not a celebration of a separation that is the fruit of gradual  maturing, but a traumatic separation that is the result of violence and abuse.

At one point Moses sees the oppressed people from whom he came. The verb "to oppress" (in Hebrew: 'anah) should literally be translated as "afflicted" or "downtrodden". Biblical theologians consider this a very meaningful and noble term: 'anaw, plural 'anawim. The anawim, in fact, are regarded as an authentic category within the people: they are God's poor, and they represent the true believers in biblical history. These poor (oppressed) are often presented as those for whom God has a particular care.

Even though families are oppressed and can barely survive, life nevertheless wins out. One child who survives is enough — the strength of life being born despite unfavourable conditions, and everything becomes possible. Fate seems to be reversed. Life breaks through in the most unfavourable conditions. The child is saved because Pharaoh's daughter sees that the child is beautiful. Moses' beauty is a sign that God himself is beginning the process of a new creative work. In the dark shadow spread over the land by Pharaoh's overwhelming oppression, a space of light opens up. In the child who is born, the whole power of the Creator stands out — the Creator who has, until now, been shaping his new and unique creation: the people of Israel. That is why the newborn Moses is "beautiful". How beautiful are all those creatures in whom people are able to glimpse the radiant splendour of the divine work.

Cormac McCarthy writes something similar in his novel The Road. In its apocalyptic setting, a father and son try to save their lives by setting out on a road about which they know very little. In the end, though, the father cannot go on; sensing that his own end has come, he urges his son not to give up, to keep going, even without him — telling him he must carry within himself, and keep alive, the fire that is life itself.

Once again history sets before our eyes an immense tragedy — the tragedy of a people, of countless families, of fathers and mothers forced to "give away" their own children in order to save them.  It is our responsibility not to extinguish hope, but to protect life; to help, wherever possible, parents and children, brothers and sisters, be reunited. And not to forget that just such a child may become a liberator, a saviour who was himself once saved.