• Shmos, 1st Aliya

  • Jan 12 2025
  • Length: 5 mins
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Shmos, 1st Aliya

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  • Audio Summaries of the daily Chumash portions In loving memory of Ousher Zelig ben Myer HaLevi Z”LTo sponsor an episode please visit: https://itistaught.com/support-this-project/To get the daily chumash summaries in your email click here https://substack.com/profile/182692001-sarede-rachel-switzer?utm_source=profile-page.Subscribe on SpotifySubscribe on Apple PodcastsPlease consider leaving a review on the platform of your choice! For comments and inquiries, email itistaught@gmail.comNew Pharaoh in EgyptThe parsha begins with a counting of all of Yaakov’s children who had come into Egypt, totaling 70 people and relates that they passed away.The fact that they were counted both during their lifetime and after they passed away, highlighted how endeared they were to G-d. For similarly does G-d count the stars in the sky as they come out and night and then leave. So the sons were as follows:Reuven, Shimon, Levi and YehudaYissaschar, Zvulun and BinyaminDan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher andYosef, who stayed faithful to his family’s ways in spite of becoming a powerful ruler in Egypt.So the sons indeed pass away along with that entire generation.The Israelites grow significantly in number, with every pregnancy bearing six children and the Israelites filled the land of Egypt.A new era begins in Egypt and it is up for debate whether this involved a new Pharaoh coming to power or if it was the same Pharaoh who ruled with different laws.If it was a totally new Pharaoh, he was unfamiliar with Yosef. If it was the same king with new laws, he merely pretended to not be familiar with Yosef.Whatever the case, this “new” Pharaoh says to his people “The Israelites are greater and more numerous than us! If we are attacked, what if the Israelites join our enemies? They will then leave us and we will no longer have them as slaves. Let’s outsmart their G-d by afflicting the Israelites with water, for after the flood, G-d promised that he would never again send a flood to destroy the world, so if we afflict them with water, their G-d will not take revenge on us in kind.” This king made such an assumption for he knew that G-d usually punishes “measure for measure”. What he failed to realize was that while indeed G-d had promised that he would not destroy the entire world through a flood, this did not preclude him from hurting a specific area with water.So Pharaoh decrees that there shall be “tax collectors” that ensure that the Israelites must pay a “tax” in the form of building storage houses in the cities of Pitom and Ramses. These cities were not originally fit for storage, however the Israelites made them strong and fortified so they now were.Yet the more the Egyptians afflicted the Israelites, the more G-d blessed the Israelites and they continued to prosper. The Egyptians became disgusted and saw the Israelites as thorns. They enslave and embitter the Israelites with backbreaking labor involving mortar and bricks and working the land in every way.Pharaoh summons the Israelite midwives to him - Shifra (from the same root as meshaperet , “to beautify” since she beautified the babies during birth) and Puah (meaning to “cry”, since she cried with the crying babies and soothed them with sounds and words. Alternatively, it is an allusion to a woman “crying out” in childbirth). The real name of these women were respectively Yocheved and Miriam (Yocheved’s daughter).Pharaoh’s astrologers had foretold that there would be a boy who had yet to be born who would save Israel.So Pharaoh commands the midwives to kill any Israelite boy who is born. Girls, however, do not have to be killed at birth.The midwives disobey Pharaoh and not only do not kill the boys but sustained them with water and food. Get full access to Sarede’s Substack at sarede.substack.com/subscribe
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