| 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 mankinds 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 hakini friend of the Kinites (see
Judges 1, 16, Zohar 3,216). The latters 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 Abels
second twin sister for himself. She was reincarnated in the person of Tzipporah
[Yitros 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, YitroI 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. Yitros 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
(for a free weekly email subscription, click
here) (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 (for
a free weekly email subscription, click
here) For all
our insights for this parsha from last year |