And these are the names of the children of Israel who came into Egypt . . . Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah (Exodus 1:1–2)
Although G‑d had already counted them in their lifetime, He again counted them at the time of their death, to express His love for them. For they are like the stars, which He takes out and brings in by number and name, as it is written (Isaiah 40:26): “He takes out their hosts by number; He calls them each by name.”
Note: We always remember the terrible things that G-d did, or asked our ancestors to do. But how many of the good things do we remember? Especially the wonder of our own existence, which is good in G-d that creates life. This life, this experience, this dialogue. Like a brief light that shines on everything for a short while, and then is extinguished.
Rashi says that “G-d … counted them”. Is it not rather that Moses (or the princes) counted the people for G-d? We, as His emissaries, doing His work. This is where the analogy of a king works, especially a kind-heated, merciful king. This king requires certain duties and responsibilities from his subjects, but other than that, they are free to live their lives in whichever manner they please.
Choice & Intention: see writings.
Joseph died, and all his brothers, and all that generation (1:6)
Joseph, who lived 110 years, was the shortest-lived of the brothers; Levi, who lived 137, was the longest-lived. Hence, the enslavement of Israel, which began after Levi’s death, was no longer than 116 years (the period from Levi’s passing to the Exodus), and no shorter than 86, the age of Miriam at the time of the Exodus (Miriam, meaning “bitterness,” was so named on account of the bitterness of the exile).
(Seder Olam)
Let us deal wisely with them (1:10)
Pharaoh himself took hold of a basket and shovel; all who saw Pharaoh with a basket and shovel, and working in bricks, did likewise. The Jews came too, and diligently worked with him all day, for they were strong and brawny. When evening fell, Pharaoh placed taskmasters over them, and said: “Count how many bricks they made.” He then said to the Hebrews: “This number you shall deliver to me each and every day,” appointing the Egyptian taskmasters over Hebrew officers, and the Hebrew officers over the people.
(Midrash Tanchuma)
The more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew (1:12)
Said Rabbi Akiva: In the merit of the righteous women of that generation were the Israelites delivered from Egypt.
At first, Pharaoh insisted only that they make the prescribed number of bricks each day. Then he commanded that they should not be allowed to sleep in their homes, so that they should not be able to have children. So the taskmasters said to them: “If you go home to sleep, you will lose a few hours each morning from your work, when we send for you, and you will never complete the allotted number.” So they made them sleep on the ground out in the field.
What did the daughters of Israel do? They would go down to draw water from the river, and G‑d would send them small fish into their pitchers, which they drew up half full of water and half full of fish. They then set two pots on the fire, one for hot water and the other for the fish. They sold the fish and bought wine, which they carried to their husbands in the field, and washed, anointed and fed them, and gave them to drink. They would then take out their mirrors and look into them with their husbands, teasing them, “Look, I am more beautiful than you,” thus arousing their desire and cohabiting with them at the borders of the fields, as it is written: “When you lie between the borders” (Psalms 68:14). (It was these mirrors which G‑d later commanded Moses to use in the making of the washstand in the Sanctuary—see Exodus 38:8.)
After the women had conceived, they returned to their homes. When the time of childbirth arrived, they went and were delivered in the field beneath the apple trees, as it is written: “Under the apple tree I brought you forth” (Song of Songs 8:5). G‑d sent an angel from the high heavens who washed and straightened the limbs [of the babies] in the same way as a midwife straightens the limbs of a child, as it is said: “As for your nativity, on the day that you were born, your navel was not cut, neither were you washed in water to cleanse you” (Ezekiel 16:4). He also provided for them two round stones, one for oil and one for honey, as it is said: “He made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil from a boulder” (Deuteronomy 32:13).
When the Egyptians noticed them, they went to kill them; but a miracle occurred and [the children] were swallowed up in the ground. The Egyptians brought oxen and plowed over them, as it is said: “The plowers plowed upon my back” (Psalms 129:3). After they had departed, they broke through the earth and came forth like the grass of the field, as it is said: “I caused you to multiply like the plants of the field” (Ezekiel 16:7). When the children had grown up, they came in flocks to their homes. When G‑d revealed Himself by the Red Sea, these children recognized Him first, as it is said: “This is my G‑d and I will praise Him” (Exodus 15:2).
(Midrash Tanchuma; Talmud, Sotah 11b)
Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying: “Every son that is born you shall throw into the River” (1:22)
He imposed the same decree upon his own people. Said Rabbi Yosei ben Rabbi Chanina: He made three decrees. First [he instructed the midwives,] “If it is a son, then you shall kill him”; then he commanded, “Every [Hebrew] son that is born you shall throw into the river”; and finally, “Pharaoh commanded all his people,” imposing the same decree upon his own people.
(Talmud, Sotah 12a)
Note: This is one way to start a revolt that would lead to a large portion of your labour force deserting you en masse, behind a charismatic leader.
Every son that is born you shall cast into the River, and every daughter you shall make live (1:22)
Pharaoh did not merely allow the Jewish girls to live; he commanded to “make them live” (techayun, in the Hebrew).
Pharaoh’s decree of annihilation against the Jewish people consisted of two parts: to throw every Jewish newborn male into the Nile, and to make live every female. The boys were to be physically murdered. The girls were to be murdered spiritually by making them live the Egyptian life, by indoctrinating them into the perverse lifestyle of Egypt.
The boys were to be drowned in the Nile. The girls, too, were to be drowned in the Nile—conceptually, if not actually. The Nile, which irrigated the fields of rain-parched Egypt, was the mainstay of its economy and its most venerated god. The girls were to be raised in this cult of the river, their souls submerged in a way of life that deifies the earthly vehicle of material sustenance.
In our own day, the Pharaoh-instituted practice of drowning children in the Nile is still with us: there are still parents whose highest consideration in choosing a school for their children is how it will further their child’s economic prospects when the time will come for him or her to enter the job market.
The people of Israel survived the Egyptian galut because there were Jewish mothers who refused to comply with Pharaoh’s decree to submerge their children in his river. If we are to survive the present galut, we too must resist the dictates of the current Pharaohs. We must set the spiritual and moral development of our children, rather than their future “earning power” and “careers,” as the aim of their education.
(The Lubavitcher Rebbe)
There went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi (2:1)
Where did he go? He went in the counsel of his daughter.
Moses’ father, Amram, was the greatest man of his generation. When he saw that the wicked Pharaoh had decreed, “Every son that is born you shall throw into the river,” he said: We are laboring for nothing! He went and divorced his wife. All the Israelites followed suit and divorced their wives.
Said his daughter to him: “Father, your decree is more severe than Pharaoh’s. Pharaoh decreed only against the males; you have decreed against the males and females. Pharaoh decreed only concerning this world; you have decreed concerning this world and the world to come. In the case of the wicked Pharaoh, there is a doubt whether his decree will be fulfilled or not; in your case, it will certainly be fulfilled.” So Amram went and remarried his wife, and they all went and took back their wives.
“And he took to wife”: it should have said, “and he took back”! Said Rabbi Yehudah ben Zevina: He acted towards her as though it had been the first marriage. He seated her in a palanquin, Aaron and Miriam danced before her, and the ministering angels proclaimed: “A joyful mother of children.”
Why is she called “a daughter of Levi”? She was one hundred and thirty years old! Because the signs of youth were reborn in her.
(Talmud, Sotah 12a)
[Pharaoh’s daughter] saw the box among the rushes, and she sent her maid (“ammatah”) to fetch it (2:5)
Another interpretation of this verse renders the Hebrew word ammatah as “her arm” rather than “her maid.” Ammatah also means “arm length.” This is to teach us that “her arm was extended for many arm-lengths” (to enable her to reach the basket).
(Talmud; Rashi)
If Moses’ basket lay beyond her reach, why did Pharaoh’s daughter extend her arm? Could she possibly have anticipated the miracle that her hand would be “extended for many arm-lengths”?
There is a profound lesson here for each and every one of us. Often, we are confronted with a situation that is beyond our capacity to rectify. Someone or something is crying out for our help, but there is nothing we can do: by all natural criteria, the matter is simply beyond our reach. So we resign ourselves to inactivity, reasoning that the little we can do won’t change matters anyway.
But Pharaoh’s daughter heard a child’s cry and extended her arm. An unbridgeable distance lay between her and the basket containing the weeping infant, making her action seem utterly pointless. But because she did the maximum of which she was capable, she achieved the impossible. Because she extended her arm, G‑d extended its reach, enabling her to save a life and raise the greatest human being ever to walk the face of the earth.
(Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk)
Note: This “extension” of her “reach” is also indicated in the action that she took to save this infant.
She called his name Moses (2:10)
From here you can infer how great is the reward of those who perform acts of kindness. For although Moses had many names, the name by which he is known throughout the Torah is the one which Bityah, the daughter of Pharaoh, called him, and even G‑d called him by no other name.
(Midrash Rabbah)
Note: Here is the response: she is rewarded for her actions. It was not just a kindness, it was a revolutionary act which put her in danger. Thus she was right to reach for the box herself, and not involve her servants in this act of disobeying an edict of the Pharaoh.
He went out to his brothers, and looked on their suffering (2:11)
He saw great burdens put upon small people, and light burdens upon big people; a man’s burden upon a woman, and a woman’s burden upon a man; the burden which an old man could carry on a youth, and of a youth on an old man…
Note: Is that not what is happening today? Women taking upon men’s burdens: single women (or women with men who are not functioning as men in their communities—taking on the burden of women) carrying the male burden of supporting and protecting the family.
Old people whose children are not, or cannot, look after them having to carry the burden of youth; and youth being supported by their parents and grandparents far beyond their age of maturity—youth carrying the burden of the old. Is that what feminism has brought us to? Just like socialism, a noble social doctrine, brought about communism, which is just another political system of control.
Moses saw that they had no rest, so he went to Pharaoh and said: “If one has a slave and he does not give him rest one day of the week, the slave dies.” Said Pharaoh: “Go and do with them as you say.” Thereupon Moses ordained for them the Sabbath day for rest.
(Midrash Rabbah)
He killed the Egyptian (2:12)
How did he kill him? Rabbi Eviatar said: With his fist. Others say that he took a shovel and cracked his skull. The rabbis say that he pronounced G‑d’s name against him and thereby killed him; Note: Magician already? thus [the Hebrew he saw fighting the next day] said to him, “Do you say to kill me?”
(Midrash Rabbah)
He said to the wicked one: “Why would you hit your fellow?” (2:13)
Said Resh Lakish: He who lifts his hand against his fellow, even if he did not hit him, is called wicked, as it is written: “He said to the wicked one: Why would you hit your fellow?” It does not say “Why did you hit," but “Why would you hit,” indicating that though he had not hit him yet, he was termed a “wicked one.”
(Talmud, Sanhedrin 58b)
Moses dwelled in the land of Midian; and he sat by a well (2:15)
He took his example from Jacob, who found his wife by the well.
Note: Three of our forefathers’ wives were “found” at a well! Here is the spiritual element of water playing its role in these spiritual unions.
It came to pass, in the course of those many days, that the king of Egypt died; and the children of Israel groaned because of the bondage (2:23)
He didn’t actually die, but was afflicted with leprosy, and his physicians said to him that his only cure is to slaughter Hebrew children—150 in the morning and 150 in the evening—and bathe in their blood twice a day.
(Midrash Rabbah; Rashi)
Note: What sort of councillors and advisers do these monarchs have? Is it the same today? Why would it be any different? They have their own interests at heart. This is the first idea of a pogrom, a particularly devious one. Interesting that the blood of infants was used to besmirch the Jewish people regarding the baking of matza for Pesach. The story of Esther is another.
The children of Israel groaned because of the bondage (2:23)
Until this point, the children of Israel were so deeply sunk in their galut that they could not even sense it. But now, when the first budding of their redemption began to emerge, they could begin to feel the depth of their suffering.
(Chiddushei HaRim)
Note: Lovely. It requires an awakening. The cave parable of Plato. Similar to any sort of spiritual awakening. Though an awakening is not necessarily an epiphany. An awakening occurs when the first roots and shoots appear, though the awakening was in the seed. It just need the correct conditions to awaken and live.
Moses was shepherding the sheep of Jethro (3:1)
G‑d tests the righteous. How does He try them? With sheep.
(Midrash Rabbah)
The midrash then goes on to give two examples of David’s and Moses’ caring for their sheep that caused G-d to choose them both as leaders of the Jewish people.
Question: Is it not strange that an 80 year old man would be shepherding his sheep in the wilderness alone? It might happen if he was impoverished, and had no one to help him, but otherwise it is unlikely.
He came to the mountain of G‑d, to Horeb (3:1)
The mountain had five names: The Mountain of G‑d, Mount Bashan, the Mountain of Peaks, Mount Horeb and Mount Sinai.
(Midrash Rabbah)
The angel of G‑d appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a thornbush (3:2)
Note: Thus the angel of G-d can appear as fire as well as in the image of a person.
The bush burned with fire, but the bush was not consumed (3:2)
At Sinai, Moses beheld the heart of the simple Jew.
“Man is a tree of the field” (Deuteronomy 20:19). But the field has many types of trees. The Talmud compares the righteous Torah scholars to fruit trees, which bestow beauty, fragrance and nourishment upon the world. The fruit trees also burn—they burn with the ecstasy of their Torah study, with the fervour of their prayer, with the warmth of their good deeds. But theirs is a fire that burns and burns out, a fire that is sated by the words of Torah and prayer and the fulfilment of the divine will.
But the thornbush burns with a fire that is never satisfied. The simple Jew, who cannot fathom the depths of Torah, who can barely articulate his prayers, who has little understanding of the significance of a mitzvah—his is a thirst never quenched. His heart burns with a yearning for G‑d he can never hope to still, with a love he can never hope to consummate.
When Moses, the most perfect of men, beheld the heart of flame that smoulders within the thornbush, he was humbled by the sight. “I must turn aside to see this great sight,” he said: I must move from where I am and strive to awaken in myself the insatiable fire of the simple Jew.
(Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov)
G‑d called to him out of the midst of the bush: . . . “I am the G‑d of your father” (3:4–6)
G‑d first called to Moses in the voice of Amram his father, so as not to startle him. At that moment Moses rejoiced, saying, “My father still lives.” Said G‑d: “I am not your father, but the G‑d of your father.”
(Midrash Tanchuma)
Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon G‑d (3:6)
Rabbi Yehoshua ben Korchah and Rabbi Hoshaya discussed this. The first said: Moses did not do well in hiding his face, for had he not done so, G‑d would have revealed to him what is above and what is below, what has happened and what will happen.
Rabbi Hoshaya the Elder said: Moses did well in hiding his face. Said G‑d to him: Since you showed Me respect and hid your face when I showed Myself to you, I assure you that you will be near Me on the mountain for forty days and forty nights, in which you will not eat nor drink, but feast on the splendour of the Divine Presence.
(Midrash Rabbah)
Note: Another striking piece. Upon reading these passages, I fear the influence of the golden shadow. I could never be good enough to reach such heights—partly because I have not committed and dedicated my life to living in the full purity of a Jewish life.
G‑d said to Moses: “I am who I am.” And He said: “Thus shall you say to the children of Israel: ‘I am’ has sent me to you” (3:14)
G‑d said to Moses: You want to know My name? I am called by My deeds. I might be called El Shaddai, or Tzevakot, or Elokim, or HaVaYaH. When I judge My creatures, I am called Elokim. When I wage war on the wicked, I am called Tzevakot. When I tolerate the sins of man, I am called El Shaddai. When I have compassion on My world, I am called HaVaYaH . . .”
(Midrash Rabbah)
“I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue” (4:10)
When Moses was a child in the royal palace, Pharaoh would take him on his lap to kiss and hug him, and Moses used to take the crown of Pharaoh and place it upon his own head.
The magicians of Egypt sat there and said: “We fear that this is the one of whom we prophesy that he will take away the kingdom from you.” Some of them counseled to behead him, others to burn him. But Jethro was present among them, and he said to them: “This boy has no understanding of what he is doing. However, test him by placing before him a gold vessel and a live coal; if he stretches forth his hand for the gold, then he has understanding, and you can slay him; but if he reaches for the live coal, then he has no understanding, and there can be no sentence of death upon him.” So they brought these things before him, and he was about to reach forth for the gold, when the angel Gabriel came and thrust his hand aside so that it seized the coal; Moses thrust his hand with the live coal into his mouth, so that his tongue was burnt, with the result that he became slow of speech and of tongue.
(Midrash Rabbah)
Moses was afflicted with a speech impairment so that it would be clear that his success in transmitting the Torah to the world was not due to his oratorical skills. Rather, it derived solely from the fact that “the Divine Presence spoke from his throat.”
(Derashot HaRan)
You shall take this staff in your hand, with which you shall do the signs (4:17)
This staff was created at twilight of the sixth day of creation, and was given to Adam in the Garden of Eden. Adam gave it to Enoch, Enoch to Noah, Noah to Abraham, Abraham to Isaac, and Isaac to Jacob. Jacob brought it with him to Egypt and gave it to Joseph. When Joseph died, his house was looted, and the staff ended up in Pharaoh’s palace. Jethro, who was one of Pharaoh’s soothsayers, saw the staff with the mysterious markings on it and coveted it; he took it and planted it in the garden of his home, and no man was able to come close to it.
When Moses came to Jethro’s house, he entered the garden, saw the staff and read the markings on it; he reached out his hand and plucked it from the ground. When Jethro saw this, he proclaimed, “This man shall redeem the people of Israel from Egypt,” and gave him his daughter Zipporah as a wife.
(Pirkei d’Rabbi Eliezer, ch. 40)
G‑d said to Aaron: “Go to the wilderness to meet Moses.” And he went and met him at the mountain of G‑d, and kissed him (4:27)
This is what the verse (Psalms 85:11) refers to when it says, “Benevolence and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed.” “Benevolence” is Aaron; “truth” is Moses. “Righteousness” is Moses; “peace” is Aaron.
(Midrash Rabbah)
Note: This is a Chesed & Gevurah relationship.
The people believed; and they heard that G‑d had remembered the children of Israel (4:31)
The people of Israel were redeemed from Egypt only in the merit of their faith, as it is written, “The people believed.”
(Mechilta)
The letters (which held the secret of the redemption) were given over only to Abraham; Abraham gave them over to Isaac, Isaac gave them to Jacob, and Jacob to Joseph. Joseph transmitted them to his brothers, while Asher the son of Jacob handed them down the secret to his daughter Serach.
When Moses and Aaron came and performed the miraculous signs before the elders of Israel, the elders went to Serach and said to her: “A man has come and performed such-and-such signs.”
Said she to them: “These signs don’t mean anything.”
Said they to her: “But he said pakod pakadati (‘I have surely remembered’).”
Said she to them: “This is the man who will redeem the people of Israel from Egypt.”
(Pirkei d’Rabbi Eliezer, ch. 40)
Pharaoh said: “Who is G‑d?” (5:2)
That day was Pharaoh’s day for the reception of ambassadors, when all the kings came to pay him honour, bringing with them gifts of crowns with which they crowned him lord of the world; they also brought their idols with them.
After they had crowned him, Pharaoh’s servants came and said: “Two old men are at the gate.”
When Moses and Aaron entered, Pharaoh asked them, “Who are you?”
“We are the ambassadors of G‑d, blessed be He.”
“What do you want?”
“Thus says the L‑rd, G‑d of Israel: Let My people go, that they may observe a festival for Me in the wilderness.”
“Has he not the sense to send me a crown, that you come to me with mere words? Wait while I search in my records.”
Pharaoh went into his palace chamber and scrutinised every nation and its gods, beginning with the gods of Moab, Ammon and Sidon. He then said to them: “I have searched for his name throughout my archives, but have not found him. Is he young or old? How many cities has he captured? How many provinces has he subdued? How long is it since He ascended the throne?”
(Midrash Rabbah)
Note: The materialistic, dualistic view of the world—often necessary in a monarch.