The books of Shemot and Bamidbar have some striking similarities. They are both about journeys. They both portray the Israelites as quarrelsome and ungrateful. Both contain stories about the people complaining about food and water. In both the Israelites commit a major sin: in Shemot, the golden calf, in Bamidbar, the episode of the spies. In both, God threatens to…
…to the Lord, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our homes when He struck down the Egyptians.’ (Shemot 12:26-27) [2]On that day tell your child, ‘I do this because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.’ (Shemot 13:8) [3]“In days to come, when your child asks you, ‘What…
…seems little doubt that much biblical legislation is concerned with what we would call nowadays ‘sustainability’. This is particularly true of the three great commands ordaining periodic rest: the Sabbath (Shabbat), the sabbatical year (Shemittah) and the jubilee year (Yovel). On the Sabbath, all agricultural work is forbidden, ‘so that your ox and your donkey may rest’ (Shemot 23:12). It…
The sedra of Shemot, in a series of finely etched vignettes, paints a portrait of the life of Moses, culminating in the moment at which God appears to him in the bush that burns without being consumed. It is a key text of the Torah view of leadership, and every detail is significant. I want here to focus on just…
…his brother could go free. Moshe Rabbeinu, the man who said lo ish devarim anochi, gam mitmol gam mishilshom gam may’az dabercha el-avdecha ki chevad-peh uchvad lashon anochi. [Shemot 4:10] The man who couldn’t speak. Who said lo ish devarim anochi, I’m not a man of Devarim [words], became the author of the finest speeches ever given in history called…
…forgives the people. And then Moshe Rabbeinu comes down the mountain with the second tablets. Does anyone know what day he came down the mountain? 10th of Tishrei, Yom Kippur. That is why Yom Kippur is on the 10th of Tishrei. If you look in source 13 (Shemot 34:29), vayehi beredet Moshe meHar Sinai. “When Moses came down from Mount…
…verse? Ki be’annan – in a Cloud, I led the Israelites through Egypt. That’s what it says all the way through. Can you see source four? [Vayikra 16:2) Vayomer Hashem el-Moshe, daber el-Aharon achicha va’al-yavo… et cetera, et cetera… ki be’annan eira-eh al-hakaporet, I will appear in a Cloud above the mercy seat. Or, in source five [Shemot 40:34] Vayechas…
Right at the end of the book of Shemot, there is a textual difficulty so slight that it is easy to miss, yet – as interpreted by Rashi – it contains one of the great clues as to the nature of Jewish identity: it is a moving testimony to the unique challenge of being a Jew. First, the background. The…
…household fulfill it. Yet you transgress your father’s decree!’” (Sotah 12b) [2] On the adoption of a foundling in the ancient world, see Nahum Sarna, Exploring Exodus (New York: Schocken, 1986), 31–32 [3] Shemot Rabbah 1:26 [4] Vayikra Rabbah 1:3 [5] Derekh Eretz Zuta 1 Is the decision Pharaoh’s daughter took a heroic act or the least we could expect of any human…
It is interesting to note the absence of Moses from the parsha of Tetzaveh. For once Moses, the hero, the leader, the liberator, the lawgiver, is off-stage in the only instance where the name of Moses is not mentioned at all in any parsha since the first parsha of the book of Shemot (in which he is born). Instead our…