Why Did I Write Moses – Son of Ramses?

“Don’t end up like me.”

That’s what my father used to tell me growing up.

I was the oldest child in a struggling family. I always felt his expectation that I’d succeed where he had failed. He had enormous faith in me, but he didn’t have the tools to show me the way.

How much my father loved me.

And how much I waited for guidance that never came.

I think that’s where my obsession with Moses’s two fathers was born.

Ramses: powerful and certain, a teacher, a guide, a man who opens doors. The father I always wanted.

Amram: poor but proud, full of expectation and real faith in me. The father God gave me.

So I set out on the journey of my life. No tools, no guidance. Just my father’s faith. Faith that was enough to turn me into a fairly successful, overly competitive son of a bitch, hungry above all to see one flicker of pride in one person’s eyes.

My father’s eyes.

Moses is me. So is Ramses.

This story pulls me in because of the weight parents place on their children’s shoulders, without either side realizing how heavy it really is.

Ramses dreams that Moses will save the empire he built.

Amram believes Moses will deliver the children of Israel from slavery.

Both want him to succeed where they failed.

Both believe in him. Maybe a little too much.

And what does Moses want?

A place where he can be himself. To choose his own path. No great role to fill, nothing to prove, no destiny too heavy to carry.

I take the biggest story in the world and search inside it for the small moments: a father’s look, a son’s expectation, a love that turns into a burden.

Out of that place came my book: Moses – Son of Ramses.

My name is Moshe Kazan. I am an entrepreneur and businessman, husband to Tea, and father to Nicole, Lian, and May.