Weekly Reading Insights

Shmot 5763

 

Overview of the Weekly Reading: Shmot
To be read on 23 Tevet 5763 (Dec.28)

Torah: Ex. 1:1-6:1 
Haftorah: Isaiah 27:6-28:13, 29:22-23 (because its opening verse parallels Ex.1:1)
Stats: Shmot, 1st Reading out of 11 in Exodus and 13th overall, contains 0 positive mitzvot and 0 prohibitive mitzvot.
It is written on 215 lines in a parchment Torah scroll, 18th out of 54 in overall length.

The Egyptians afflicted the Jews with forced physical labor, and decreed drowning all Jewish newborn males. Moshe was born. His mother hid him in a basket in the Nile, where he was discovered and adopted by Pharaoh's daughter. One day, when already adult, Moshe killed and buried an Egyptian supervisor who beat a Jew. The next day, realizing his deed was public knowledge, Moshe fled to Midian where he married one of Yisro's daughters, Tzipporah, and they had a son, Gershom. The Jews cried to G-d because of the slavery. G-d's angel appeared to Moshe in the form of a burning bush. G-d told Moshe that he would redeem the Jews, and that Moshe should relay this to Pharaoh and to the Jews, even though Pharaoh would not agree to let the Jews go. Moshe begged G-d to appoint a messenger besides himself. G-d decided that Aharon, Moshe's brother, should be Moshe's spokesman. Moshe began his return journey to Egypt with his wife and sons. Tzipporah circumcised their second son, Eliezer, when stopping at an inn. In Egypt, the Jewish elders listened to Moshe, saw the signs, and believed in G-d's promise to free them. But after approaching Pharaoh, Moshe and Aharon were rebuked and thrown out of the palace. Pharaoh instructed to harden the Jews' labor. The foremen blamed Moshe for the Jews' misfortune. Moshe told G-d that the situation had worsened. G-d answered that in the end, Pharaoh would force the Jews to leave his land.


FROM THE CHASSIDIC REBBES (V:13-63 Shmot)

Pharoah commanded all his people saying, "Every son that is born cast him into the river, and every daughter you shall sustain." (1:22)
The Hebrew word for "you shall sustain" is "techayun," which means, "you shall be the source of life." Pharoah told the Egyptians to take in the Jewish daughters and totally assimilate them into the Egyptian way of life. Pharoah ordered a physical extermination of the boys, and a spiritual extermination of the girls. Both decrees are written in the same verse to show that they are equivalent in their harshness.
(Likutei Sichot)

"Let the work be made to lie heavily upon the men, that they labor in it, and that they may not pay attention to false words." (5:9)
A true Chasid knows that his service of G-d requires great personal effort and exertion. Thus he will never ask his Rebbe for a blessing to attain that which he is obligated to accomplish on his own...
(Tzemach Tzedek)


  A MYSTICAL CHASSIDIC DISCOURSE (M:13-63< Shmot


FROM THE MASTERS OF KABBALA
Selected with permission and adapted from the three-volume English edition of Shney Luchot HaBrit -- the Sh'lah, as translated, condensed, and annotated by Eliyahu Munk.
Rabbi Isaiah Horowitz (1565-1630), known as the 'Sh'lah' - an acronym of the title, was born in Prague. A scholar of outstanding reputation, he served as chief Rabbi of Cracow, and more famously, of Frankfort (1610-1620). After his first wife passed away, he remarried and moved to Israel in 1621, where he became the first Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi of Jerusalem. He later moved to Tiberias, where he is buried, near the tomb of the Rambam.

By being exposed to water Moses and the Jewish people atoned for the generation of Enosh part of whom were drowned whereas part survived. Every difficulty Moses experienced was in some way a means of atoning for other past generations’ shortcomings.

Moses’ experience in Egypt paralleled that of mankind up to that point; i.e. he suffered to achieve mankind’s rehabilitation.

Cain and Abel were the first men born by woman. They were intended to be the typical Adam, i.e. representative of what mankind should develop into. Now it had become the turn of the people of Israel to be refined and to acquire the appellation “Adam.” According to our Kabbalists, Moses was the reincarnation of Abel, whereas Yitro was the reincarnation of Cain, chaver ha’kini “friend of the Kinites” (see Judges 1, 16, Zohar 3,216). The latter’s 3 souls, i.e. the “lower” soul, life force nefesh, was reincarnated in the body of the Egyptian who was slain by Moses. (Exodus 2,2) His “middle” soul, ruach, was reincarnated in the body of Korach, whereas his “upper” soul, i.e. neshama was reincarnated in the body of Yitro.

Cain had killed Abel because he had wanted Abel’s second twin sister for himself. She was reincarnated in the person of Tzipporah [Yitro’s daughter and Moses’ future wife], and that is why Yitro represented Abel at that point. This explains how the same Moses who was reported to have refused to suckle on the breast of a non Jewish wet nurse (Sotah 12), could nonetheless marry a woman of non Jewish origin (because she was to him like Eve had been to Adam, i.e. a missing part of his body, see Genesis 2, 21-23).

The relationship between Moses and Yitro became possible after Moses had killed the nefesh part of Cain’s reincarnation in the person, of the Egyptian who had abused or killed a Jew (Exodus 2, 11-12). Yitro had absorbed the “higher” soul, neshama, of Cain, and as such could – “twin” – Moses who had absorbed the neshama of Abel.

The reason Yitro had entrusted (given) his flock to Moses (Exodus 3,1) was that it was symbolic of the sheep he had stolen from his brother Abel in his previous incarnation, the latter having been a shepherd (Genesis 4,2). Moses had not wanted to accept this flock, believing it to be rightfully Yitro’s.

When Yitro came to Moses in the desert, he said to him “come forth on account of your wife whom I give to you, and her two sons.” The first letters in the verse ‘Ani chotencha, Yitro’—“I am your father-in-law, Yitro” (Exodus 18,6) spell ‘achi’, my brother. This was when he had realized that he, Yitro, representing Cain, was Moses’ brother, whose former incarnation had been Abel. Yitro’s words “now I know,” (Exodus 18,11) reflect this new-found knowledge of Yitro (Cain). Cain had murdered because he did not believe that G-d is a judge, that there is justice in the world, and that there is life after death.


An essay from Rabbi Shaul Yosef Leiter, director of Ascent

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(W:13-63 Shmot)

"And his (Moshe's) sister (Miriam) stood from afar to see what would happen to him. (2/4)
Rabbi Mordechai of Kreminitz says that 'sister' refers to Torah, as it says, 'Wisdom, your sister' (Proverbs 7/4). That 'his sister stood from afar' hints that Torah stands aloof from us, withholding our entry into the secrets, until the Torah sees that we act properly-'to see what would happen to him'. Only then can we merit the true light of Torah.

"And the Egyptians made the Jewish people serve them with parech" (1/13). The Talmud (Sotah, 11b) says that the word 'parech', usually translated 'harshness', can actually mean 'with a question'-that the Jews served in Egypt with questions. Rabbi Nachum of Chernobyl suggests that this interpretation will help us understand the inner dimension of the exile. When a person allows his perception of G-dliness to be impaired, he sends it into exile. This is like the generation of the flood, who rebelled and said, 'Who is G-d, that we should serve Him?' Even though the Torah was not given yet by G-d to the world, it already existed on a certain subtle spiritual level, as it says, "the power of the Craftsman can be perceived in His handiwork". Only certain very gifted individuals (Adam, Chanoch, Metushelach) were able to perceive the Torah in its totality and fulfill its directives. Yet the generation of the flood were genuinely evil people that purposely cut off their world from its inherent spirituality, from its Torah. Therefore, G-d destroyed their world through the flood. But what happened to that inherent Torah energy? It fell into the klipot (spiritual husks) of Egypt! This caused the ability to perceive divine consciousness to be impaired, and therefore, the Jewish people had to be brought down to Egypt to redeem and elevate the Torah that was imprisoned there.

On the verse, 'The Egyptians forced the Jews to labor with chomer, and levainim…and parech' (1/14), the Zohar explains that 'chomer'-mortar-is a hint to the expression, kal v'chomer, one of the 13 rules of logical exegesis used in Torah study, telling us to bring proofs, going from a lighter construct to a heavier one; 'levainim'-bricks-is a hint to livun hilchata, the extracting of the law from within all of the Torah discussions; and 'parech'-harshness-is a hint to pircha, a question, and is a hint to the dialectic method uses by students to understand the Torah. So, in fact, the purpose of the enslavement of the Jewish people was in order to extract the Torah which would be learned according to the above rules in the future. Each person's struggle, according to his specific soul, was to redeem that particular detail of Torah that was connected to him. This process went on until all of the letters of the Torah were redeemed from the depth of the klipah. This is why, when the Jews left Egypt they were able to receive the Torah so quickly, notwithstanding their slavery; during those 210 years they had extracted everything of spiritual value and integrated it into themselves. This is the meaning of the verse, (10/1) 'Go to Pharaoh, because I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his servants in order to show My signs-otiot-before him'. 'Otiot' also means letters. With this meaning, the verse reads, 'Go to Pharaoh because I have hardened his heart, in order to remove my letters from within him'.

What was true then is also true now. Every exile is an exile of consciousness; our challenge is to remove the letters and sparks hidden within. Each person has a unique task which only he or she can accomplish. May we all go out of the exile and bring Moshiach now.

Shabbat Shalom, Shaul Leiter

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