וְיֵעָשׂוּ כֻלָּם אֲגֻדָּה אֶחָת לַעֲשׂוֹת רְצוֹנְךָ בְּלֵבָב שָׁלֵם
וְיֵעָשׂוּ כֻלָּם אֲגֻדָּה אֶחָת לַעֲשׂוֹת רְצוֹנְךָ בְּלֵבָב שָׁלֵם
Parashat Shemot, is the first parashah in the book of Exodus, whose name is also Shemot, which literally means names. In this parashah we read of the birth of Moses. Not taking anything away from Moses – or from his father, whom we’ll get to in a moment – I would like us to keep in mind that Moses’ birth, and his very survival, were made possible by a few brave and fearless women!!
Growing up in Uruguay, I learned about the Exodus in two different languages, Hebrew and Spanish. The Hebrew version spoke about the story that named the Book of the Torah—Moses's birth, rise, and glory as a leader. The Spanish version spoke about the birth, rise, and glory of a different leader: Jose Artigas, the leader of the Uruguayan people.
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A D’var Torah for Parashat Shemot
By Rabbi Katy Allen (’05)
I’m glad I wasn’t an Egyptian back then.
I’m glad I wasn’t there
to be ordered by Pharaoh
to throw newborn babies
into the river. (Exodus 1:22)
Although, I’ve heard that I might not necessarily
have had to drown any babies myself ‒
I might, instead, have had to force my neighbors,
the Israelites,
to drown their own babies (Or HaHaim).
I’m glad I didn’t have to do that either.
It’s also possible,
the whispers through the generations tell me ‒
and I shudder in response ‒
that if I myself had given birth
the day that Moses was born,
I might have had to kill my own baby,
Egyptian though he would have been. (Sotah 12a)
Of all the terrible things our sacred tradition tells us
that Pharaoh did,
I find that telling his own people
to snatch up baby Read More >
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This story sounds familiar, I thought.
Sitting in a college religion course, my professor began to describe the early life of a most significant religious leader in world history, someone who was effectively the founder of one of the world’s major religions.
The story began with this future religious leader growing up in a palace and living a life of spectacular material comforts. As a member of the king’s family, he has plenty of whatever he wants, and he is unaware of any suffering or poverty that exists outside the palace’s walls. In fact, the king does his best to insulate him from witnessing any pain, injustice or suffering.
One day, this future religious leader ventures out of the palace walls, and what he sees there challenges him deeply and changes him forever. He Read More >
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Antisemitism Then and Now
A D’var Torah for Parashat Shemot
By Rabbi Irwin Huberman (’10)
There is a gnawing question that has plagued many commentators, as we witness in this week’s Torah portion, what could be referred to as the first recorded case of antisemitism:
How did the Jewish people fall from grace to disgrace in such a relatively short period of time?
More specifically, what exactly happened during the two hundred years since the Israelites were welcomed into Egypt with open arms – to the point when a new Pharaoh arose and enacted policies that targeted the descendants of Joseph?
As last week’s Parashah ended, all appeared to be well between the Israelites and the Egyptians. The Torah tells us that officials from the highest levels of the Egyptian government accompanied Joseph as he travelled to Canaan to bury his father, Jacob.
This included, “…all the officials of Pharaoh, the senior members of the court, and all of Egypt’s Read More >
A D’var Torah for Parashat Shemot
By Rabbi Bruce Alpert (’11)
Living up to its own name, our Torah portion, Shemot – Names – has a lot of them. Some of them are known to us. Some are new. And some aren’t given at all.
Among the new names are those of Shiphrah and Puah – the two midwives whom Pharaoh orders to kill all the male Israelite newborns. And therein lies a curiosity. We know the names of the servants. We don’t know the name of the king they serve. Indeed, his only identifying characteristic seems to be that he “did not know Joseph.” (Exodus 1:8).
The Rashi on this verse directs us to a dispute in the Talmud between Rav and Shmuel as to this Pharaoh’s identity (Sotah 11a). One insists that he really is a new leader, while the other claims it was the same Pharaoh as in Joseph’s time who issued new decrees following the latter’s death. To me, Read More >
by Rabbi Jill Hammer
“Just as they oppressed [the Hebrew people], so it increased and spread out…”
There is a fierce assertion at the beginning of the book of Exodus that the oppressed will not be stifled by oppression. In Exodus 1:12, we hear that as the Hebrews are forced into slave labor, they continue to increase. “Yirbeh,” the word for “it increased” refers to fertility: they bore children and became many. Yet I hear other echoes in “yirbeh.” In that word we find the word “rav,” master, and the implication of autonomy. “Yifrotz,” it spread out, can refer to the increase of a people, as when Avraham was told “ufaratzta,” you shall spread out. Yet “yifrotz” can also mean “it burst out,” as in Peretz, the child of Judah and Tamar, who “made a breach for himself” in coming out of Tamar’s womb. I hear in this verse the implication that long before Read More >
by Rabbi Michael Pitkowsky
Parashat Shemot describes not only the development of the Israelites as a people in Egypt, but also that of their leader Moses. While the Torah does not describe in detail all of Moses’s earlier years, it does offer us a glimpse at some of the formative moments of his life. One of these moments was when Moses, floating on the Nile, was found by Pharoah’s daughter.
When she opened it, she saw that it was a child (yeled), a boy (na’ar) crying. She took pity on it and said, “This must be a Hebrew child (mei-yaldei ha-ivri’im zeh). (Exodus 2:6)
The ambiguity of how Moses is described has drawn the attention of many commentators. Was he a “child” (yeled) or a “boy” (na’ar)? We find the following comment in the Talmud (Sotah 12b).
A boy (na’ar) crying”–he is called a ‘child’ (yeled) and then a ‘boy’ (na’ar)! — A Tanna taught: He Read More >
“And these are the names of the children of Israel who went down to Egypt with Jacob: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah…” (Ex. 1:1-4)
Who are the Jewish people? Are they a biological family, a nation, a community of faith, a cultural group, or partners in a common destiny transcending all these categories?
The answer we get in the Bible seems deceptively clear. After enumerating the ancestors of the seventy nations of humanity in Genesis Chapter 10, the Torah goes on to focus on Abraham and his descendants. The Canaanites, Hittites, and Amorites (not to mention the Philistines) are given remote pedigrees, descended from non-Semitic branches of the Noahide family of humanity. The neighboring nations of Edom, Ammon, Moab, Ishmael, Midian, and Amalek are all given places as siblings or cousins in the Abrahamic family tree. Israel is identified with the descendants of Read More >
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