Shemos - 2nd Portion

Join me as we learn for today, Monday, the second Torah reading of Parish Shimos. Yesterday, we learned that the Jewish people are settling in the land of Egypt. They continue to prosper and grow. However, Pharaoh gets concerned and needs to deal with the Jewish problem and thereby decides to enslave them, giving them backbreaking labor. as well. His stargazers told him that there's going to be a leader from the Jewish people that will save them, a boy. With that, he commands the Jewish midwives to kill every Jewish male and allow the Jewish females to survive. They did not listen to Pharaoh's decree. This is where today's Torah reading begins by Pharaoh summoning the Jewish midwives why they did not follow his orders. Chapter 1, verse 18. And the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and he said to them, "Why have you done this? And you kept the boys alive." Verse 19. And the midwives answered Pharaoh, "The Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women. They are very skilled." By the time they're like animals who are very skilled, what does this mean? Before the midwife would even get to them, they already have given birth. What does it mean? They are skilled like animals. They are skilled like midwives. They don't need our help. The explains like animals. The rabbis explain. You look at the Jewish people, they are compared to the animals. is a lion's a wolf. And therefore, they don't need midwives. Where do you see that they're compared to animals? As we mentioned in last week's reading, there's a lion's ax compared to a deer. Whoever it is not mentioned by them that they compare to an animal. The verse concludes them all when he says that and the blessed them all together as one. That means even though they don't have a clear direct analogy to an animal, but they're all part of the same blessing. So another thing it says in the track in the in the book of that prophet compares the Jewish people to a lion, the mother, a woman lion, the mother of all lions. So the Jewish people are compared to animals and therefore he says they are like animals and they don't need our expertise. Verse 20 and God dealt kindly with the midwives and the people to continue to increase and grew very strong. What does it mean? That God was kind to them. He did favors to them. He made it good for them. This is the difference when you have a word that its root is for example but the two letters before it are VV and meaning in this case the say and what happened to them when it's coming to tell me something of what will occur. So then you have the as in our case that God made it good for the midwives. And over here he gives multiple cases of where you see the has this um sele and it means that will happen to them. However, when he wants to say that the action happened on its own, then it will be with a and was good in his eyes. That means it happened already that the nation became a lot that he turned to both ways turned to both ways. Now continues. So you're going to ask me I find in other places it says ves and he went he settled he he went down he walked he left. Well, all of these are even though it means that the person himself is doing it, not that it's happening to them. These are not the same because those cases the is from the foundational letter. For example, went down went out. Those are the root words. The is part of the root word. So therefore, the does not serve as a servant to the word telling me its activity, but it's actually part of the word. is the third letter in it and therefore it's the rules there are different and God was kind to the midwives. How was he kind? That's the next verse. Verse 21 because the midwives feared God. God granted them dynasties literally meaning homes. What does it mean homes? dynasties says the dynasties of the priesthood and the Levites and the kingdom but in which those are called homes to build the house of God and the house of a king. Where do we see this happened? The priesthood and the Levites came from Yv which her two sons Moses and Aaron Hamalus and the kingdom Miriam came from Miriam as it says in the tracked of Sota that from Miriam that she married into the tribe of Judea that David King David was from the children of Miriam. Verse 22 because the midwives weren't listening to what Pharaoh said. Therefore, Pharaoh and now had to make a new rule. And this rule was Pharaoh then gave orders to all his people. You should cast every boy who is born into the Nile River and you should make every girl live. When we say every girl live, as we said before, that they should be assimilated into the land of Egypt. to all of his nation. They meaning that Rafaroh didn't only make the decree against the Jewish people. This was on even on the Egyptians. Rashi, even the Egyptians, he said that they should throw them into the Nile River. When was this? When did he continue to do this? The day that Mosa was born, his stargazers told him today the uh savior of the Jewish people were born. We don't know if he's an Egyptian if he's a Jew. We see that he will be making the plagues of water that he will be caused to be hurt by water. Therefore, he made a decree that day even on the Egyptians. It says every poor Jew, every male that's born those that were born to the Jews. They did not know what does this mean that he will be hit by water that yes he will be punished by water but not these waters of the Nile River later on when he's leading the Jewish people and he uh hits the water by the rock that will cause that he should be uh punished by it. Verse chapter 2 verse one. Now, the Torah provides us a little bit of details about Moshe's life. Now that we know what's going on in the general atmosphere of Egypt, the hardships that the Jewish people are going through, the Torah tells us how Moshe is born. Chapter 2. And a certain a Levite man went and married, remarried a woman, a daughter Ley's daughter. And a man went from the house of Ley Ley and he married Ley's daughter. What's going on over here? Who's married who? And Rashi explains to us. Why does it say he took? Why doesn't it say just married? And what happened over here is because they were already married and they had two children. But the father of Moshe, he separated from his wife because of the decree of peril. Now over here, he went back and took her back. That's why he went he went with the advice of his daughters. His daughter told him said, "Dad, you are the leader of the generation. People are looking to you to see what you do. Your decree is worse than Pharaoh because since you went and separated from your wife, everybody else separated from their wives as well. Pharaoh only decreed his decree on the males. And you because you separated from your wife and now everybody else separated from their wives, even females won't be born. So therefore what did he do? He went back and married her again for the second time. So to her was already old at the time became a young woman. Her years of at the time she was about 130 years old. She was born when they came into Egypt is right by the walls and the Jewish people were there 210 years when they left Mosha was 80. So if you deduct 80 off 210 comes to comes to reality that when she became pregnant with Mosha she was 130 years old. However, the Torah calls her bas because since she went back to her youthful age that she should be able to give birth. Verse two, and the woman conceived and she gave birth to a boy. This is in the year 2368 on the day of seven. She gave birth to a boy. And she saw that this boy is good. How good he was. And she kept him hidden for three months. Why? So Rashi explains what's happening here. When he was born, the whole the whole home became full of light. Therefore, she called him to as God called it good. Others also explained that she saw she he was born circumcised. That's why he called him to the medish says that his father called him Tuvia. Over here we come to verse three. Why? For three months. And what's the three months about? Verse three, she was no longer able to hide in. So she took a wicker basket and she cockked it with clay with pitch and she put the child in it and she placed it among the rushes near the banks of the Nile River. Why wasn't she able to hide him any longer? Because the mitim the Egyptians will keep count nine months from the time a person came once she got married from the day that she returned to her husband to be able to see that most most women give birth after nine months to see if she gave birth and then they would come and snatch the child. She gave birth was born as a premature in six months one day because one that gives birth to seven usually doesn't make it tonight. So she g she's usually giving birth to only part of the seventh month. So therefore they didn't know that she gave birth already. So they only came to check up for her leafisha at the end of nine after she they knew that she has given birth. So therefore she can no longer hide her. So what did she do? She made this wicker basket which is which is clay. It's very soft. The usual way of it is that it's able to float in the water. I'm sorry. This is wicker that we're talking about here. And it's able to float in the water and it's something which is soft and therefore it will not get broken. At the same time it won't get in damaged. with clay and with with um with clay and with pitch the pitch was on the outside and the clay was on the inside so that the great Moshe should not have to smell the terrible odor of the pitch and she put it on the swamp or at the at the rushes near the bank of the Nile River. That's the name of a swamp. Why? Because over there the earth is very wet because a lot of things just grow there on its own. We find is also ina where we talk about the bad that's going to happen. The rivers and the and the uh and the oceans will dry up that you'll see the big stalks that are that are falling because they're are drying because of there's no water. Torah now continues on verse four. and his sister Miriam stationed herself from a distance to know what's going to happen with him. Verse five. And the Pharaoh's daughter went down to wash herself at the river to bathe at the river and her maidens were walking along the Nile's edge. She saw the b she saw the basket at the edge of the at the edge of the amongst the rushes of the river and she sent war her maidervant or according to some she took it as and she took it she went to bathe herself by the river you have to mix around the words in this verse in order to understand what's happening here what happened there the daughter of pharaoh went down to the river herself. Then you have to go where did she go or next to the river like we see in other places or means on the side this means the hand the reason why it's called means next to because your hand is next to you meaning that her maid service went it's a type of death meaning I'm going to die so two her maid service were going on the side of the They were going to die because they were trying to protest that she should not save the child and therefore Gabriel came and killed them that they shouldn't be an obstacle to the daughter of Pharaoh taking Moshe. The verse that we're learning here helps us understand that and sees that as well. Why does the verse even have to say that they were going on the side of the river? Big deal. It's only telling us that they were looked like they were going on the side of the river but afterwards they were killed because since they tried stopping from taking Moshe her maidervant her maidervant the rabbis have learned was her hand. However, according to the proper Hebrew grammar it should have been the should had a dot in it. They say her hand. What does it mean? Wiser referred to her hand because her hand extended by many hand breaths. So she should be able to reach the basket that is far from her. Verse six and she opened it. Then she saw the child and the land was crying and she had mercy. She had pity on him and she said, "This is a Jewish child." Rashi verse six she saw she opened it and she saw who does she see she saw the child that's a simple interpretation she saw that the divine presence was with him why does it say a lad was crying as it a child or an ladar he had a voice which was already mature And Mosha's sister and the lad sister tells the daughter of Pharaoh. Go and call a nursing a nursing woman, a wet nurse for the child, a Jewish wet nurse for you. Then they will be able to nurse the child for you. Why did she say specifically from the Jewish ones? So Rashi says, Verse seven, she brought many different Egyptian wet nurses len to give the child to nurse but he would a nurse from them because since he's going to speak from the he's going to speak with the divine presence he's going to speak to God and how is it befitting that a child a mouth that would speak to God should nurse from a non-Jewish wet nurse verse eat and this daughter of parro said to her go and the mature girl went and she called the child's mother says she went quickly swiftly very quickly like a young energetic child that she went to get the mother the mother of the child And the daughter of Pharaoh said to the mother of the child, take this child and nurse him for me, and I will pay you for it. And the woman took the child and she nursed him. Verse 9 over here the daughter of Pharaoh who said prophecy did not know what she was saying prophecy because she did not know that this child was take yours what belongs to you and the child grew up and she brought her back to the pharaoh's daughter and he became like a son to her and she was very fond of him and therefore She called him Moses and she said, "Why am I calling him Moshe?" Because I drew him from water. I picked him up. I took him out. This is what it means to remove or to take in Aramaic. like taking somebody that pulls a string out of the fat in the Hebrew removal like we find the Torah should not move. This is the way who was the author of the grammatical Hebrew explained this as well. It is not from the terminology I don't think mashu is telling is coming from the word mush or yush which means to remove but it actually comes from the word which means to pick up to take out that we find it's actually in the book of Samuel because if it would have been from the word to move it should have said the different samples that give are different words or different verbs that it should have been if it means to move. The word is coming from a word that the last letter of it is a hey which can be either because he's coming to say I did something. So the at the end comes instead of the hey like I did it I built it I cleared it I commanded it. So to over here Moshei I removed him from the river and for that reason I'm going to call him Moshe. This tells us about the birth of Moshe and that Moshe was born uh to YV and Amram and the name that he was given Moshe was the name that was chosen by Batya while his parents called him to or this concludes the second Torah reading for paras. Shemise.