“Exodus…motivation for protecting and providing for the needs of strangers and the disadvantaged of society.
G-d chooses to enter into an eternally valid covenantal relationship with Israel, a legal reality that entails immutable and inescapable obligations on Israel’s part; as spelled out in a series of laws.
Some said that slavery was a punishment for assimilating into the Egyptian way of life and wanting to be like the Egyptians.
The Israelites adopted the Egyptian way of life in all of its crudeness and superficiality. Thus psychological enslavement…preceded physical enslavement, even as psychological liberation will later precede physical liberation.
…be sensitive to the oppression of every age…Israelites were worthy of being redeemed precisely because they did not assimilate.
Striving…to understand the phenomenon of gentile hatred of the Jewish people…[we may] note that [they] object[s] not so much to the behaviour of the Israelites as to their very existence.
[Goshen’s seventy] is the nucleus of a new humanity, spiritually speaking.
Jacob had to wrestle and change to become Israel, and his children, the children of Jacob, also had to outgrow their less admirable traits to become the children of Israel.
The Israelites are conscripted for compulsory unpaid labour on public works projects for indefinite periods.
Instead of confronting the Israelites with threats and demands, the Egyptians hid their evil intent behind soft innocuous words, assuring the Israelites that this was for their own good.
Abraham Lincoln reflected the teaching of Torah in his statement: ‘As I would not be a slave so I would not be a master.’ An ancient rabbi taught: What made the work unbearable? Not only that it was hard but that it seemed pointless. People are capable of working hard, but they burn out from a sense of futility, a sense that nothing will come of what they are doing.
G-d has built standards for moral behaviour into the universe. Abraham [was] afraid that the Philistines [would] murder him and abduct his wife because ‘there s no fear of G-d in this place.’
All else having failed, Pharaoh issues a final decree. He mobilizes ‘all his people’ the entire apparatus of the state, to annihilate the Israelites.
Pharaoh is ready to believe that the Israelites are virtually a different species, less human and less deserving of life than are the Egyptians, so that he can proceed with his program of persecution and slaughter.
Moses, an Israelite raised in Pharaoh’s palace, returns to his people, as if to suggest that it was nobler to be a common Israelite than an Egyptian prince.
‘Perhaps this will be the one to make the world into the kingdom of G-d.’
‘Only one who can hear the cry of Moses the infant will be able to properly understand the words of Moses the lawgiver.’
Such a person may be psychologically freer to act, and will be taken more seriously both by his followers and by his opponents.
Breaking through the selfishness of his own ego, he discovers his neighbor.
Now all men are neighbors.
Suffering and persecutions can bring forth nobility of spirit in some victims, and meanness of spirit in others.
Moses shows his maturity as a leader by devoting his efforts to helping his people even though they are less than perfect.
‘How is it’ Apparently the girls experienced constant mistreatment at the hands of male shepherds, causing them to arrive home late regularly.
They were groaning in their misery with no certainty that anyone would hear them.
Heschel defined Jewish religion as ‘the awareness if G-d’s interest in Man.’
G-d feels the tension between compassion for the suffering of innocent people and the commitment to a long-range plan calling for their continuing to suffer until the time of redemption arrives, until the people are psychologically ready to claim their freedom.
To see that the bush is on fire is easy; to see that it is not consumed takes time and patience; another necessary quality of leadership that Moses displays.
How many miracles might be happening around us but we; in our haste, never stop to notice them?
‘If I reveal Myself to him in a thunderous voice, I will terrify him. If in a whisper, he may not hear Me.’
Jews have involved themselves in theology, speculating on the nature of G-d, mostly when they have had to understand the ways their faith differed from the faith of those around them.
‘Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh’
Erich Fromm take [this] to mean: ‘I, G-d, am in the process of becoming; neither I nor human understanding of Me is yet complete. And you human beings, fashioned in the image of G-d, are in the process of becoming.’
‘I am not a far off G-d, a remote, uncaring philosophical conclusion. I am G-d who will be with you; you cannot understand My nature, but you will know Me by My presence, and you will walk with Me when you follow My commands.’
G-d is with us in our efforts to do what is right but difficult.
…the council of elders [were] entrusted with considerable judicial and political authority.
[the State] organized forced labour gangs [at] that time…
The denial of…reasonable demands of Israelites [to perform obligations and vows to G-d] reveals the brutal nature of Pharaoh’s tyrannical rule.
[the spoil; which was asked for and granted, taken from the Egyptians] was looked upon as well-deserved compensation to the Israelites for their centuries of unpaid forced labour.
[The reason for those who experience as slaves in Egypt was] to teach them compassion for the oppressed and gratitude for their freedom.
A Jewish legend tells that when the infant Moses was sitting on Pharaoh’s lap, he reached up and took off Pharaoh’s crown. Pharaoh feared that this was a sign that this child would one day try to replace him, so he devised a test. He set before Moses a crown and a hot coal, thinking, ‘If he reaches out for the crown, I will have him killed.’ The baby Moses was about to reach for the shiny crown when an angel redirected his hand away from it toward the coal. Burning his fingers, he put his hand in his mouth and injured his tongue, rendering him ‘slow of tongue’ ever after. Perhaps the Torah is telling us that, whatever our limitation, G-d can use us to do great things.’
‘Hardening of the heart’…expresses a state of arrogant moral degeneracy. [this] character [becomes Pharaoh’s] destiny.
Israel [as G-d’s first-born son] enjoys G-d’s devoted care and protection.
G-d comes as a destroyer and blood averts evil. [A] vital significance of the institution of circumcision and the serious consequence of its neglect.
Once again, it is a woman, this time Zipporah [‘a bird’] who understands and does what is necessary to sustain life….an early example of the convert to Judaism who takes its demands more seriously than the native-born Jew.
An uncircumsized Israelite would be alienated from the community of Israel and excluded from the paschal sacrifice and the redemption from Egypt.
‘Divine sovereignty is precisely what Pharaoh mocks at the outset of his power struggle with Moses. It is not a matter of oversize egos but of the limits of human authority.’
Pharaoh treats the request for time to worship as a scheme to avoid work.
[There were also] economic reasons for refusing the request…interruption of their labour would entail enormous loss of productivity.
In the Egyptian slave labour system the workers were organized into manageable gangs, each headed by a foreman from among their own. He, in turn, was directly responsible to his superior, the ‘taskmaster.’ The foreman were Israelites; the taskmasters, Egyptian.
…a new exodus, that is the re-rooting of the self in days to come.(Isa. 27:6)
Va-era
This is the last time that the divine name Elohim/justice appears in any speech of G-d to Moses. Henceforth it will always be Havayah/mercy.
‘G-d of your fathers is the G-d of Genesis; Havayah is the G-d of Exodus.’
‘I will free you’ from physical enslavement in Egypt. I will ‘deliver you’ from the psychological mind-set of being a slave, which might persist even after you have been physically liberated. ‘I will redeem you’ so that you will think of yourselves as a free people, and ‘I will take you’ into a special relationship with Me, for that is the ultimate goal of your liberation. Finally, ‘I will bring you into the land which I swore to give Abraham.’ Only when the Israelites have their own land can they become the special people they are summoned to be. Only there will they have the duty and the opportunity to translate the ideals of the Torah into the realities of daily life and fashion the model society from which all nations will be able to learn. The promise of a land of their own is the Torah’s ultimate promise, the threat of being cast out of that land is its ultimate punishment. It is not enough to remove the burden of slavery, they must also have the proper circumstances that will permit them to flourish as G-d’s people.”
~Etz Hayim Sh’mot Commentary