Parashat Shemot 5783
Click HERE for an audio recording of this D’var Torah
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 >
