Parshat Shemot: The Redemption Axis | Rabbi Ari Kahn | January 8th 2026

is sponsored perpetually [laughter] for this year for this year >> by uh Rabbi Michael and Jerry Lax meter for the Rafush the granddaughter Aasar about Shane Iron said that shouldn't be perpetual that should you have refu already >> and then we'll find better reasons to sponsor so we started a new book but it's a it's a new book but with an old story the old story is well that I guess we'll have to uh work on a little bit to understand the old story. But it's it's a new book and it's obvious I I hope to all of us that we are uh there there's history and there's background and it's it's because of this in context and it's because of this that I think there's various ways of of understanding the beginning of Schmode or for that matter the what we can say the quote unquote narrative story of Schmote and part of it is you know especially the way that we generally learn And that is by a lot of even though Gil did not like the term la term last week, we gave him a whole week to get used to it because of our interextual analysis in order to see juxtapositions between different sections and to see how one section then sheds lights on another section. And sometimes before you see these kinds of things, you don't understand what's taking place. or I'll say it the other way around. You may understand what's taking place on a certain level, but once you see it, then it's almost like you can't unsee it. So, we're going to see things today which again maybe to all of you is completely obvious, but maybe before we note it, it's not going to be or not wasn't necessarily completely obvious. But let's start with uh with Moshe. Moshe is our main character we're going to speak about and that hopefully if we're going to pick any character that was completely predictable. Other years we spoke about other people. We spoke about his history. We spoke Miriam. We spoke about Sarah Basher. We talked about uh especially Nashin Satan. But but Moshe is the main character. Moshe is the one who has been predetermined appointed anointed by the divine in order to be the quote unquote the savior of this particular episode of this particular story. And therefore it's Moshe who we're going to focus on more than anyone else. But we're going to try to understand the origin story of Moshe with an earlier origin story and then we're going to try to see the completion of the story and therefore and essentially we're going to be moving in two directions today hopefully. One is moving to the past and the other is moving towards the future and uh or at least the future from Mosher's perspective and and as I said once we see this then we'll understand a little bit better. If you want to ready the title for today I think what we're going to call this is the redemption axis. So >> redemption what? >> Access ax ax a ax [clears throat] is so we're going to leave that for a moment. We'll see rashi soon. So there's background to this. I mean what what exactly is the background? the background to source number three and that is that we're told that any child who's born will be killed. So bringing a child into a world like this is uh is something excuse me any boy any boy my boy bring bringing bringing a child into a world like this is something which could be perceived as completely someplace between futile and cruel. you could decide which way you want to you want to lean more, but that that's the background. Um, as we continue, we're told that that didn't necessarily work that well and instead so one one was initially killing them at birth and the other one one was killing them subsequently and that's the world that Moshe enters. So what I do want to do is try to understand this in a little bit of a broader conceptual way. Even though you can argue with me that why would we ever want to move conceptual when you can just deal with the tragedy itself which is really quite overwhelming. But there's something which we may be missing which as I said is is really what I want to uh I want to note in source number two Rashi noting is and the mat of Rashi is the next couple words. So it sounds as if they just now got married. A man from Ley marries a girl from Ley and Vatari Shat Ben and she gets pregnant and she has a son. Now the problem is is that subsequently we're going to learn multiple times that Moshe has older siblings. Moshe has an older brother and Moshe has an older sister. And therefore Rashi finds this a little strange that over here it should be talking about. Now again a rabbitic message over here that again some of us will hear some of us should hear and that is that the word is one which is connected to marriage is in the very beginning of the gmorrah in uh in kaducian it says ephron. So therefore the word is one of marriage. So Rashi over here source two. So Rashi over here takes the GRA and reads it into the verse and said they were married but they had separated. You can decide separated means divorced or separated means a separation. In parentheses it says Now, all of that is in the Gmorrah. I don't know why it's in parentheses and Rashi. It could be Rashid didn't quote all of it, but somebody then put the rest of the Gmorrah back inside. Also, notice something. This is again, this is my parenthetical comment on the parenthetical comment. Later on in the Torah, we're going to have Miriam speaking about Moshe, who had just separated from his wife. At least >> here >> you like my passive aggression. >> My threats that I won't come back and teach have not worked yet. >> It it could be I need to be more aggressive in my protests. So my parenthetical comment on the parenthetical comment is that we're told later on that Miriam speaks lash against Moshe and there Rashi explains because Moshe had also that Moshe married a a ashakushid but there Rash says no he separated so therefore Miriam who's the one who advocates for her parents to get back together when she hears that Mosha separated she feels she has a moral right to comment on this because had she not commented to her parents about getting back together. There never would have been a Moshe. And by the way, that's an important statement. There never would have been a Moshe had it not been for this. And that's part of what Rashi is telling him. And then they remarried and they made a new acquisition as it were. I I think this is meant to be less legal and more romantic. It means that Okay, I'll I'll I'll I'll say this because it's true. And then you can do anything you want with this. Doesn't necessarily see marrying your ex-wife as something which is really um celebratory. You're not allowed to get married during the nine days. If you look in the look in the Mishu, there's an exception. You can marry your ex-wife during the nine days. [laughter] Says why? Because there's no not so much simka involved in marrying your ex-wife. I'm not necessarily advocating [laughter] anything over here. I'm just stating is that there's again I said it's halak is that you don't get married because it's it's a celebration but marrying your ex-wife is generally not somebody's going to marry their ex-wife and make a big big wedding and invite hundreds of people and so on. It's probably something which be a little bit uh be a little bit quieter. So again that's the point over here it's saying no is that they went and they made a whole big celebration about it. Why? Because again the Gomorrah says because Amram was a leader and because he separated a lot of other people did as well. And therefore he had to show that this is a mistaken outlook and that even though the situation is dire and even though that there's reason for pessimism, pessimism is realism in this case. But Judaism doesn't always recognize the realism of pessimism and rather we have this optimism based upon some other kind of belief in some kind of a divine interaction within our collective lives. And therefore we remain persistently optimistic against all evidence to the contrary. And that's that's our collective experience as a people. And as you read the rashi here That's really an important statement and that's one which is really easy to miss. I mean you can look at some of the commentary starting to do the math to figure out how old she is including Rashi's continuation here. I'm not reading it but Rashi just now said something really important. So sometimes you get married she became a young bride again. There's something changed. No but this is not just talking about emotional. This is not just talking about outlook. It wasn't like she was acting younger than her age, dressing younger and so on and so forth. That this is saying that she actually became younger again, which means it theoretically could have been, again, I don't want to push this too much, but it theoretically could have been that she was already at this point menopausal. But now that's really important because again I'm I'm just hoping you realize what just now happened is that when I spoke a moment ago about the impossibility of Mosha's birth, well it's impossible because his parents had separated. It's impossible because his parents are no longer together. But now you just understand the impossibility is compounded by the situation of even if they get back together, she is not as young as she once were. And there therefore the birth of Moshe is something which never should have taken place. Now again something really interesting just now happened and I hope I'm saying enough words now that you're already figuring out what is taking place but if not you know I'm going to say it much clearer as we continue but again just as a starting point over here Rashi told us something. But we see what Rashi did is he created a narrative and the narrative over here is the impossibility of Mosha's birth other than there being some other input. Now the input over here I can say on the one hand it's the input of theina on the other hand it's the input of somebody who's acting as theina over here on earth and that takes us back to Miriam who is this woman who makes sure the children are born and that's how she's been identified till now and therefore not only she ident not only does she cause these other children to be born not only does she fight against parro she fights against her father as well and as much as our language that we have in the hagada is that you know love and it's very interesting because that whole love and argument was the worst than parro. It's Amram who's worse than parro according to the way that the Gomorrah is going to spell all of this out. So now if we take the collective again narrative now that we see some of it's on midrash some of it's based on the text any male child has been decreed will be killed immediately. Any male child that wasn't killed immediately will be killed subsequently by being thrown into the water. So, we have enough reason to believe that someone like Mosha never should have been born. On top of all that, his parents are not together. So, it's very hard to get pregnant when you're not together. On top of all of that, she's not that young anymore. So, if they get together, so all of this now just now painted a really interesting picture, and that is that Mosha's arrival is something which is based upon the will of God. That that that's what we get out of that. Now, if all that wasn't enough, then we continue about what it actually says in the text. And it's at this point that that I hope that we understand what's happening. And then you'll see hopefully exactly where I am going with this where it continues and it says back in source number one in Pericbad after Moshe is born, three months go by. That's bad. And she cannot hide him any longer. That as much as the mother wants to protect the child, you just can't anymore. But just like so now she gets for him his which is what but it's you know as much as our imagination takes back takes us back to the TVA of Noah which in the face of a decree of destruction is there some kind of a hope of salvation and over here it's a primitive and she goes and you know tries to make it uh seaorthy as it were. But uh you we all realize that this is going to be a very uh primitive boat. I mean even during uh Telmutic times you know one of the things that you benchm for is if you go in a boat um try to find out what was survival rates when people went on boats in those days. It was extremely low, extremely low survival rates because the water is dangerous and the the technology that they had was not necessarily one which will you know with high percentages say I'm not talking about pirates. I'm just talking about dealing with the water and the weather. It's not such a and now over here the the captain of the ship is a three-month-old. So you realize that the chances over here and by the way I didn't even speak yet about certain other things like crocodiles which keep in mind because that that's the situation here. So once you start thinking about all of these things I hope you realize that the chances of survival over here are really quite minimal. And it says and I I want to say it again now she puts them in the reads. So, what are there in the reeds over there? Hope your imaginations now are uh that that that's the the crocodiles are slithering about over there. And yeah, but Moshe is safe. Mo, which means Mosha's survival is one again. Initially, he never should have been born. And if he should have been born, he should have been killed. And if he should have been if he survived the first time, then he should have been killed over here. And even though we have this heroic, again, you could describe it as heroic, this this gesture of saying, you know, let's do all I can to make sure Mosha Mosha survives. You were talking about Vegas before. What kind of odd odds do you get on Mosha's survival over here? It's uh it's it's Yeah, it's it's not great. Nonetheless, something happens and the thing that happens is is going to be completely miraculous. Even though all of us read this and have read this as almost something which is natural. Yeah. His sister's there and there's another woman there and and Bach Perau should not be the one to save him. [clears throat] Bach Perau should be the one to kill him. I mean again if you just want to continue along the story and and I actually love pussv because there's a combination of things and and I'll tell you honestly I had a very hard time preparing the share this week and the reason was because I had like six different shirum that were all interconnected and it kept shifting each day of the week it shifted again in a slightly I know you tell me but it's only Thursday that it kept started Saturday night that that it that it kept on shifting to different elements and at one point what's bold folded inv was far more prominent in my thinking and parro opens it and then she sees and you have this combination of seeing and hearing. So what does she see? She sees a little child. But what does she hear? She hears that there is a nar and a nar is somebody much older. It it almost sounds to me and I know that there's various uh explanations of this but it almost sounds to me that there's an objective that you see seeing is believing but then there's this imagination of what seeing the future because it's very hard to put together the yell and the nar. It's almost as if she sees the future and the future this kid is going to grow up and with and by the way he only grows up because she gets involved. If she doesn't do anything, he doesn't grow up. If she, you know, closes the thing and puts him back there, he doesn't survive. But she sees the nar and the nar is bo and the and and the crying of the nar and again it should have been the crying of the yell, but it doesn't it doesn't necessarily move the Egyptians. If that moved the Egyptians, then they never would have gotten in the situation in the first place. But sometimes you realize the ramifications of where things are going. But nonetheless, it's this dual dual seeing and hearing. By the way, that for those of you who don't recognize should take us to Hari because Hariot and this ability to uh to see sound and but she sees something and she hears something and how do you put together the different senses becomes something which is interesting. By the way, obviously Mosha's and I'm going to have a couple of candidates. What's the highlight of Mosha's life? One of the highlights that you can obviously claim is standing at Sai. And at Cena what happens all the people get to this point of a navua and they all get to the point that they can all see the sounds and they're able to uh transcend where they are right now. I actually saw a great comment by the Kutsker that it had they had to see the sounds because they only heard the words. So it says uh what what do the words say low? So the people only heard it they could have made believe it said it with the lid. So therefore they have to see the sound. until they see it's a lamol, right? Lo instead of loaf. So anyway, that's the katskar. So uh I hope I I hope you love the katskar for that. But but no, but it's much more than that. It it's not just functional. It's because it takes them through prophetic experience. And that would be fascinating that within the very aura of Mosher Rabenu, suddenly this uh this woman and by the way just consider for a second. I know that Khazal go in two divergent ways. One path that they take is to say, "Oh, she was going there because she wanted to convert and she wanted to go to mikvah and so on and so forth." And the other one is just again think about it. If they're throwing all the babies in the water, you this is the killing fields. This is full of corpses. This is the most horrific place in the world. And if you're going to say, "Oh, let's take a stroll, you know, and and and and go down to the place where there's full of dead babies." That itself is comes from a place which is just completely cruel and you don't understand how we got to this point because there should be no surprise about this. There should be other people who were killed. This is not the place you want to go on a Sunday morning you know and just you know taking the rays and so on and so forth. This is this is completely horrific. But nonetheless, she sees, she hears. And to me, that's really interesting cuz maybe she just now again experienced something prophetic within the area of Moshe. And now she's able to see the future as well. And then she makes some kind of a choice, a heroic choice. And that heroic choice is, would I want to be part of this present, this horrific present? Do I want to be part of this society? Or do I want to be part of this future? And by the way, according to not just Kazal, according to the puk and drihayamim, she leaves Egypt and she marries a Jew and she becomes part of the Jewish people. That's not a medish, that's a puk. So therefore, her future becomes that future and she ends up by seni and she does end up seeing the sounds. So that then becomes a lot more interesting in terms of understanding bot parroau at this particular uh moment. But I want to use one more word to explain what I've said till now. And that word will then open up and then you'll know exactly what it is that I want to say. [snorts] In a certain sense, when Mosha's mother takes him out and brings him to this place, carries him together with this uh primitive boat, pieces of wood which are going to be thrown together with the with the tar and whatever. It's at that moment that I want you to imagine and to understand that we've seen this before and that I would call this akat Moshe. And the place we had it before was of course with ak with carrying him up to a mountain where he's going to be killed. But it's not just that the yeets was going to be killed. It's it's much more than that. It's that every word I've said till now about Moshe, the same exact words applied to as well. Which means you should have had a sense, oh, we've seen this movie before. We've heard this story before. But of course, you'll say, "No, we didn't see. It's not the same because it's somebody else and it's different people except for everything that we just now saw, which should have made it in a in a much more uh similar sense." And again, if I stop with Mosh for a second, I I know that Mosha's story is just so rich and maybe it's hard for us to pinpoint and just to stay on those elements that I wanted to stay because we have, you know, the next step. We have Moshe walking out of the palace but which by the way and his life gets threatened again. We have Mosha's life continually threatened. It it's like the improbability of Moshe to be able to fulfill the mission. Even when he's on his way back to Egypt, something happens and Mosha's life is threatened which means it's his life is constantly threatened. And nonetheless, so why does he survive? Because there's a divine story. He's he is on a mission from God. He has been chosen. That's a Chicago. He has been uh He has been He has been >> He [clears throat] h He has been chosen to do a certain mission. And it's as almost God saying put every single obstacle in the way, the less likely that this is, the more likely you understand that this is the will of God. And the more likely then you'll understand that this has to succeed. That's a part of this story over here. So therefore, and for that matter, I mean, Moshe would make the perfect arch biography, right? He's young, he goes out, he's motivated, he wants to save his brothers and do his mission and so on, and then it doesn't work and he's frustrated and he's rejected and that could be the end of the story, but no, he comes back even double and then he becomes even this great leader, right? It's it's the template for every single uh biography, right? And uh unless maybe his he didn't go to yeshiva as a kid. So maybe it's uh may maybe Moshe is not gonna make it. But but nonetheless, there's this frustration when he goes out and tries the first time to be redeemer. It's it's as if he knows his role, but the Jews just don't want him. He tries, they don't want him. And then his life is threatened again. Power wants to kill him again. So this threat on Parro's life on Mosha's life. Power wants to kill him, right? And then parro makes him be thrown off. Then right and then again power wants to kill him and and so on which means Moshe should not survive. That that's part of what I I'm really hoping that you uh that you get out of this that that that you see. It's just that the story is so rich in so many ways that it's a little hard for us to have noticed which I now I hope that you noticed and that's what I alluded to before. I hope you can't unnotice that now. And if you just go back and think about where should we start, look at source number four. This is our introduction to Abraham's wife who will later know as SI [gasps] A. What does that mean in English? She can't have children. Biologically, she can't have children. What exactly is her situation medically? I cannot tell you. Right. Kazal go into various I mean there's even I think we learned this not that long ago. There's even an expressional that she didn't have a womb that it was impossible. She can't have a child. Whatever is the situation or the medical situation I don't need to go further than a puss in the Torah. Sarah can't have children. Aram and Sarah will not have children. That that that's the default. Later on, we're going to get to a when the men come and the men or the angels, however you want, and they say that uh that Sarah's going to have a child's already been told by God in the previous chapter over here in So, it's interesting. That's right. In Rashi makes a comment which I'm not exactly sure how to reconcile. This is for you to work on. and you figure this out. You have a data next year for Vira because she was told to bring certain things but she didn't bring the bread. Now this is the a wonderful example of Rashi telling us that Sarah was sensitive to certain laws of tumor which are not going to be revealed to way down the line. But it says why didn't she bring the bread? So Sarah, who presumably is is already menopausal, she now reverts back that day to become a young person again. So hold it. I have, by the way, I don't know why she's laughing a couple later when she's told that she didn't have a child cuz she just now had gone through some kind of uh significant change within her uh within her body. Again, that's Rash's comment. And then and then afterwards we're told that that she you know she laughs and says how you know how is this possible I'm already old but now she has perhaps some counter evidence to her being old. So as I said you can try to reconcile that could be that still somewhat shocking given her uh her history but there's another element over here and this other element hopefully now will solidify everything that I wanted to say and the angels or men say next year at this time so I don't want you to miss that is born on pesak which means when we don't we want to know where do we start the pesak story right I guess we have that question already in the Mishna which then makes its way to the hagada like where do you start the pesak story right like where you exactly do so where do you start the story but we should understand that the story has like as far as we're concerned it it has like this dual starting point the real starting point obviously is the bread bane of but the bread bane of had within it certain language which should have alerted us that it actually is a little bit later if you look at source number eight and again that's foreshadowing fear darkness incredibly right darkness falls upon him so Abraham before he has children. He's being told that your children who he doesn't have who seem like an impossibility are going to be enslaved. Again, go back to the impossibility of the story. The whole Pesak story is impossible. It's impossible from the very first moment that we're told about it. If you would have said to Abraham, a different word, not zerak, if you would have said to Abraham that your uh your students will be as numerous, that's zar is not the word that you use. Zera, by the way, I again I'll say parenthetically sometimes if one discusses I don't know if you do or don't know if you should. I don't know if you ever even thought about it, but if uh but believers of Christianity who will point at Isaiah 53 as the quot quote unquote suffering servant, one of the things it says there, but he will see his zera, he will have children. So unless Jesus had children, this verse does not speak about him. It also says, by the way, he'll die from disease. It doesn't say he'll die from a crucifix and and and so on. But the zera is the important point. Zera is a very specific term. So over here as well being told not your notes, not the people that you've inspired, your children, your children, your descendants are. So do you understand that a receiving this before you go any further in that verse there's this darkness? there's this fear and God says your descendants right then your descendants so that itself should be something which uh as I said we have this optimism because we know how the story is going to end up and he says your descendants which itself is completely miraculous again at that moment your descendants and so on and so forth and they're going to come back which means they're going to get this land they'll be back they'll be living in this land and the story has a happy ending so if you're Abraham the message of the Britarium even though there is this uh you know we always take the longer way we always take the detour we always you know in retrospect maybe there's better no that that that again the difficulty is going to be a part and and and this is what we really have to end up understanding today that the difficult path that we take is part of the story. The impossible child both in the beginning with and the continuation with Moshe that is a part of the story. The the odds of this child not surviving and then afterwards just in case somehow a sur who can't give birth just like Mosha's mother can't give birth can get pregnant and give birth. By the way, now you remember those midrashim that nonetheless is the mitzv right the bat parro's son a different path of the same story is shooting arrows at him right puts an apple on his head any you remember this midash or I should have brought it and are shooting at him which again should should survive and of course the answer is no he shouldn't survive why because even after the impossible birth they're trying to kill him and if yes can't kill him and gets kicked out so what does God say okay I got to find someone else to try to kill him. So, who's going to who who is still around? >> Abraham. And that takes you to source number seven, which of course I already alluded to earlier. And the interesting thing about this, and as I told you, at some point this would have been much more part of the story is that specifically in the Yeitzk is described as a so in both stories also becomes interesting. But that's why earlier I could describe Mosha's aada where he is if he's already here now let's make sure that he's not here and if Yitzluck is already here let's let's make sure that he's not here but the message is the same message and the message is of course Yuk is going to survive why because there's a prophecy over here but it doesn't look like he's going to survive and I'm going to say it again just in case you didn't hear me clearly enough anybody who's a student of Jewish history has to come to the exact same conclusion Don't judge the story in the middle of the story. Don't take any one isolated incident and then predict how the story is going to end up because I know how the story is going to end up. And I'm going to already tell you now, it's going to have a happy ending because that is God's will. That is what's put into this spiritual DNA of the Jewish people from the very beginning. It's impossibility. impossibility compounded by this terrible look of destruction that somehow is able to pick up and survive. And the important thing here now I said before the the access of redemption the story of Egypt begins the story of the slavery the story begins with the birth of Yitzk. That's when the story begins. Why do I say it begins then? Because God tells Ara your descendants. So it doesn't until he has descendants. Of course for Ara this is the mo this is the greatest thing. Your descendants will be I'll have descendants. They'll be slaves and then they'll come out. Okay. It's going to be a difficult birth. It'll be a difficult process. That's the whole story. It's a difficult process. But what happens at the end? They're coming back. They're going to come back over here at the end. So in a certain sense we should have no surprise whatsoever that we've now been able to identify a similarity between the beginning of the story namely the birth of Yitzk the impossibility the this proverbial uh arrow on his back at every single moment along the way and then the end of the story and the end of the story is Moshe taking them out and Mosha's existence we both in the text and midashically seem to be absolutely designed to tell you it's the same story. And the only thing which is surprising about what I've said till now is that more likely than not none of you ever thought about this before I said this today. That's the only thing. And I said once I point it out you say like what are you talking about? Of course it's uh it it's staring at you over here because it's the same story. Of course it's the same story. So I just want to now sharpen everything a little bit to make it a little bit more compelling. But I also told you there's a third act and we have to get to the third act as well because we've only uh so far have managed to get to two acts in source number nine which is of course on the British right and then it does the counting of the thing. Rashi does all the math and it goes to to to Mosha is is the end of this arc like you start on on one and then you get to because of course the story is from to Mosha. That's the counting. So again what I'm saying now is just so obvious. I don't have to prove it. I don't have to bring Rashi for this. What if I could? Why not? In source number 10 which is So in case we weren't sure about this, who is your zer? That's the chosen one. Yitzk is the story followitzk. But I said I wanted to sharpen things a little bit. And we already should know by this point, even though that you'll make believe you maybe didn't know or don't know. Yetszk's story is Pak. How do I know that? He's born on Pesak. His birth was told and takes place on Pesak, right? Aram is serving their ugot mats and so on. Surah comes back to life as it were becomes rejuvenated physically on Pesak. The all of this is a pesak story and again this is all a part of the story which is why source 11 should be of no surprise to us whatsoever even though it may be a surprise to us. during a direct parallel and you knew this already. You didn't need me to tell you this part that Yitsk's subsequent subsequent not subsequent blindness comes back to the probably deserves a lot more attention and he quotes the now couldn't see which is this talking out the next verse. So I hope you really like this because what it just now told us is that first of all he celebrates he celebrates Pes. Why does he celebrate Pes? Because that's who Yitsk is. Yetsk is Pesk is born in Pesk is all about Pes. It could be we don't understand Pes well enough yet. But Yitzk is Pesak and therefore Yitzk calls Asov in. Why is he telling him to bring him food today? Because you invite all of your relatives when it comes to Pesak. He's inviting as come. It's Pes. But it's really interesting the particular turn of phrase that he says as an opening at least according to this midrash. Is it everybody the whole world says by the way the whole world doesn't say hal on P because they don't necessarily identify with a holiday which is all about Jewish redemption. But Yetszk Yitzk sees the world but he can't see. But he sees the world from the perspective on the top of Haram Maria with angels you know crying in his eyes and he sees the world from a completely different perspective which by the way colors everything over here but again it's the seeing. It's the saying and he and he says and the hearing. Yes it's the seeing and the hearing. And yet still can't see but he can hear. What does he hear? The whole world is saying hallel. You realize it's far more likely that he hears the angel saying hal than anything else. But he says everybody's saying hal. Everyone's saying hal. But why are they saying hal? Because it's now do you any of you know what that is? Now we just now got some we got someplace now. So you you need to know the code. The word tal is connected to something consistently in kazal. Tell Hold on to that for one moment. Remember that I have not explained this to you yet. We'll come back to this. Make me food. I'm skipping by the way. The same thing. This is about the you don't know what that is. Okay. Shir. What does Rifka know? Who's saying Shira? It's the angels who are saying Shira tonight. But Yitzk again his whole birth was predicted by the angels. The angels come and talk about it and it's Pes and the angels are all saying Shira your descendants. Yakov is the one who has birth he has purchased the birthright. Yakov is the one whose children are going to be enslaved. Yakov is the one whose children go out. Which means Yakov bought in to the Yitsk story. And Yitzk is the zera who has identifies with the Araham story. Yakov's children and Yakov himself is the one who's going to go down to Egypt. And his children are the ones who go but his children are also going to come back. By the way, Jacob has to come back because that again is this microcosm of the larger story. They're going to come back and it goes back again to the point about the Shira. Notice how it just now shifted from halal to Shira. Of course, what is halal? Halal Shira. So part of the pes experience is that you have to say halal you have to sing you have to break off into song and he says you're the one who do do the cooking for pes right you're the one who needs to bring the carbon pes you're the one who now needs to take care of all of this and then you'll get the and afterwards it says even does need to eat two animals he bought them two it says Because we learned in the Mishna that Pesak is eating. It is food of liberation and you don't eat too much of it. You already eat it on a full stomach. You eat the Corbin schlamim which is the first carbon and then you eat the last khazayat. You eat of the corbin pes. So it's not something that you're starving. But we're all starving on pace. So by the time you get to that point of decad there it's uh like you end up eating like lots of cucumbers beforehand. According to the GR you should eat a you should eat a kazayas of I should eat a kayas of the carropas sometimes. I don't know people have a choice they have to eat by that point and it's and it's saying that pes is this experience of freedom and the way that we experience freedom is eating as a free person as well. But all of this the py leazar that's what's important. It just now took the scene famous scene of Jacob going into and it's reading it as the pesak seder and it focused on a couple of things. Yeah. The corbin pesak was brought in over here along the way but it focused on the hollow. It focused on the song. It f focused on the shirra and it focused on the future. So I'll say it again and this is interesting. I also think by the time you get to the end of this source and it speaks about the Kol Yakov, I have to kind of wonder what was it when he says, "Oh, this is the Cole Yakov." Is it the Cole in terms of a singing voice? Does he hear that that that Yakov knows how to sing that Yakov is saying hollow in a certain sense? Is it is it just the voice of Yakov? Or is there something a little bit deeper over here? Especially now when you understand this midrashic background where the whole thing is based on hearing everybody is singing. So does walk in you know give me you know here's the food dad and Yakov walks in singing as it were and saying halo talking about God praising God. YaKob walks in praising God when he goes in to see his father. So therefore is that is Yakov really saying hollow over here? And again, I I know I went a little bit further, but that becomes a lot more interesting. Of course, when we get to source 13, we leave Egypt. We're free except for one problem. What's that? The Egyptians start to chase us down. So again, the odds of survival just now fell impossibly. The most sophisticated army technologically with all of their tanks and all of their weapons and all of their trained soldiers are chasing after these people who are more primitive, these slaves who again we have ourim, right? We have our sticks and stones and our primitive weapons to fight against this great big army force. And what is our response? Try him. Are there no graves there that were going to die? Death is on their minds because survival seems impossible. By the way, it's the same story again. But now you realize that Mosha's impossible birth and then death, that is part of the Pesak story. So where does the Pesak story continue to? It continues to the seventh day. And what happens on the seventh day? It's impossible. The water is right there. By the way, go back to the Mosha story, right on the banks of the water. And it's impossible and there are these things which are threatening him. And again, you never thought about that either that Moshe by Moshe himself thrown to the banks of the river with the water on one side and parro soldiers as it were hunting for Jewish kids on the other side and now being found by Bad Pyro. Again, the chances of survival minimal. So over here, the only difference is it's all the people. They're able to speak. They can talk about their fear. They could talk about the impossibility of their situation. And essentially, what's Mosha's answer? Well, not yet. That's really the response over here. And that's great. Don't be afraid. You only tell people not to be afraid when they're afraid, right? I don't know how often that works. As often as calm down works, right? >> Or don't worry. Don't worry. >> Come together and you're going to see God's salvation. You're going to see it again. You're going to see. You're not going to see it again. And we know what follows afterwards. What follows afterwards is they go through and they say Shira, which means the Shira on the seventh day, the Yashir is a Shira of all the people feeling that they just now went from death to life. They should have died. They realize this. It's a near-death experience. That is what the seventh day is. The garra in source 14 says where do we see the concept of Israel? It's really interesting is that and and there's many ways to understand this. I'm just reading the words in the simplest way. The Shiraz the point of the is is that it's future oriented. But it's interesting that it's connecting your is about. But it's not just because of the future. It's also what they're experiencing at this point. It's also interesting in source 15 that Miriam of all people has a very specific role in terms of the of the Shira as well. So, I still owe you a couple things. Let's see how far we can get. One is source 16. Source 16 is going to tell us that mo that there's a there's a drought. And yet does what his father did and what's that? What his parents did. And he starts heading towards Egypt. You're going to stay here. And again the same message comes across and you're going to become so numerous himself by the way doesn't come numerous his children do his descendants do on the other hand and you'll see in a second why I'm saying the other hand Moshe I said he's the other end of this uh if you want the spiritual architecture it starts with Yitzk but Yitzk is interesting because he he is not part of the slavery he is not part of the servitude he never leaves Israel And it's more it's more complex than that because you're going to be strangers in a land which isn't yours. He's a stranger in his own land but not the servitude. Moshe on the other hand who by the way also personally avoids servitude. That's interesting. But Moshe is somebody who never fulfills the very end of the prophecy because he never makes the land of Israel. So yet never leaves Israel. Moshe never enters Israel. And now you realize that this really interesting relationship between the two of them are two sides of the same coin. And you also now realize that to continue the story, we need to find someone else. I do want to point out something else that also we tend to uh kind of gets eclipsed within the larger story and that is that Moshe is a ley and if Mosha is a Ley one of the jobs of or roles of a ley is to sing which means that maybe the most organically spiritually natural expression of Mosha's inner spiritual identity is the Shira Moshe Israel and I think we tend to again if you have somebody who was there by her seni you know, and and gets the Torah down from heaven. It's a little hard to focus. Yeah, but he can sing also. It's like like what are you talking about? He's the God. By the way, Revel Yosh had a great voice. Hey, you never knew that. You never cared about that. It didn't like debate. It happened to me that he had a great voice and he loved music and he loved singing and so on and so forth. Actually, in his biography, he talks about I think it was Yasler Rosenblat may have come to Israel once and he very much wanted to go and to hear him, but he thought it was Betto Torah. So therefore he that was he fought against his sahur to go and to a concert and hear him sing or hear him davino or wherever it was and he stayed with his gumar open and learned I believe that that that I saw that inash's biography and he loved music so great but but again isn't that like a little like footnote and so unimportant in terms of all the all the Torah that he talks I can look at Mosha and say what are you talking about no but Moshe is a ley and that's something which is spiritual and that's something which we realize now is an important part of the story because it's part of the redemption. Because after all what is singing? Singing is an ability of an emotion which is inside to be expressed through the words because he either it brings joy or is an expression of joy. The the person who can then sing words of praise that is an expression of belief. That is an expression of amuna. So therefore the Jews are able to do that right? You remember the prince of Egypt they got it wrong. They're already singing as they leave Egypt, but they don't sing until they actually see the Egyptians are dead and you know it's the it's the wicked witch is dead and now everything's over and and now and and and and now they can believe which means the expression of the belief but but Moshe had said it beforehand watch keep your eye on see what's going on over here but it's then the then the music comes out but yet look over there according to per you hear the singing all over the place don't you hear there's this great expression and Rifa says to Yakov, "No, it's it's hallow is how it's going on in heaven." Which means there's this understanding of what's taking place. But again, I'm going to say this again. This is all a part of the story. So, if we've made it this far, then I told you there is the there's the prequel and then there's a story and then there's perhaps the sequel, if you will, but it's the continuation. And we get a hint of it in Rashi in source number 18. It says it goes back to in the very beginning and it was talking about these uh these women who were keeping the kids alive and it says one of the things that it says there is and is what did they do and it says and it says that Miriam received if you look it up it says David Nami Miriam Kati that Miriam was an ancestor of David Hamelik. So David Hamelik is the continuation of the story because if we're going to talk about singing in Judaism, we're going to talk about halal. I don't know how you talked about hal you talk about singing if you don't get to to Helen. I mean to that's precisely where this leads you to. So let me note something which maybe you know maybe you didn't know. There is this really interesting turn of phrase which is found in the in Sanhedrin in verse 20. It talks about David is a stillborn and it could be you never heard this. It's a it's a prefer zohar in uh source number 21 but it's really what the gar meant over here it said that he showed him all the generations wrote that Adam sees that David's he sees his soul he sees the nama and he sees he dies in childbirth. He he he he's never aliveimal. Let me lend him 70 years. So, first of all, understand what's pretty about this. There's something pretty here. God said to Adam, "The day that you eat from the tree, you're going to die." Adam lives 930 years. A day for God is a thousand years. So therefore, when God says he's going to die today, it's from God's perspective, he should have lived for a thousand. But he lives for a thousand minus 70. David lived for 70 years. What the Zoro is saying is the 70 years of David was given by Adam and that is why he lives for the 70 years. But it's more than that. It's that Adam caused exile and David brings about redemption, future redemption. So therefore, it call it calls the future Messiah, the Ben Davidid Benafle, the child of the stillborn as it were, which goes back to the same point I've been saying from the beginning, the impossibility of salvation ever possibly taking place. And now think about David's life. Think about again. Do do you want to now compare the Jewish people taking on the whole Egyptian army and David taking on Golat and Golat with all of his weapons and so on and David with primitive with with a slingshot because do you realize yet it's the same story when you when you think about David and all the people who want to kill him at every single turn in his life he's threatened and again what are the chances of David's survival it seems to be something which shouldn't possibly happen but nonetheless David is able to constantly to sing and and and to say songs, right? I'm I'm not going to die. How can you have that kind of optimism? No, I'm not going to die. I'm going to live. We're going to we're going to do that and so on. And that's the hollow that we that we end up saying, which means when you understand all this again, I think things are a little bit deeper. There's this other point and now hopefully we'll we'll understand as as much of this as as we can can quickly in the last couple of uh of minutes in source 27. Moshe is at the snap and God tells him something which is remarkable. By the way, somebody looking for really short Torah, you could take the next three minutes, not the next five minutes, the next three minutes. It says, "I am going to make the Egyptians find favor within the Jews." By the way, that's the same way that we imagine all of the plagues as God's manipulation of nature. Here already you have a manipulation of human nature. As much as people was always troubled by, oh, he hardened Pyro's heart, this is the same phenomena, but just taking place in a slightly different fashion. I love the way the taragamon expresses this. The Egyptians are suddenly going to feel love towards you. Now that is something which is strange. It's functional. You want to borrow things from them. If they suddenly love you, they're going to want to give you things. But realize there is a manipulation that takes place. Now that is part of the redemption story, but it's also part of a future story. And that's what I still need to explain. If you actually read these verses a little bit more when right afterwards when Moshe then questions will the people really believe in me? Well, he just now told you I'm going to manipulate the Egyptians why can't I why can't the Jews now believe in you? Which means that if God is micromanaging already so once you're micromanaging so of course and by the way what's really interesting when God says right afterwards to him and isn't a right hy on the way is somebody who sings. It's also interesting and that's the place that irony is called a levy. If he's a ley means he's optimist and what does he say with love in his heart because a ley sings he sings he's optimistic and there's love in his heart. So by the way it's the same point again. There's love in his heart there's love in that there is love in the hearts of the Egyptians and all of this should be interesting and we don't know what to do with it yet. The impossibility of David's birth and life and so on. [clears throat] you know, he is the one who's gonna start playing music. Ready for sh that's one of the earliest scenes, you know, don't you have any other kids, right? Oh, no. There's this uh there's this young the youngest one like the the scrawny, you know, one. But but but David is still despite all the odds, he's David. When you get to source 33, which by the way is again about an which is now again telling you why the nar was once a more important point of all this. when it talks about the messianic age. So what's then going to happen? It's that we're going to get to this messianic time where now how does that happen? So the the Rambam says that nations of the world are all going to suddenly be able to live together. By the way, that means it's the same process. Rif Cook actually said this in a more interesting way. He said that it's a phenomena of uh of evolution. It's a spiritual evolution where people identify with the innermost good within them and then it comes out and then love comes all over the world and then we live in world's peace and that's the messianic vision that takes place and we understand that when we left Egypt there was one moment of that and that's when they lent us things but that's why that's an important part of the story that there was this possibility we we we realize that our own is already feeling brotherly love so much different than all of Beret but that's the part of the story. If in that third act when we get to David who's full of song and full of optimism that there's going to be people who can identify with that inner song and that's what David's able to do. But there's one more level to all of this that that I want to note. And that's the thing I left over that I hope that you're upset with me that I didn't tell you what it meant yet. And that was the what? What was it? >> The towel. The towel. >> I don't know if I included it here. There's Rali. I thought I included it. Maybe not. There is a uh there's a teaching. It's in a bunch of different sources that source number 12 after you bring someone back to life. Tal is a symbol of springtime is when pes takes place. In the springtime, we in Israel at least all say or read hatal. The springtime is a time the Jewish people who look like they're dead. There's no chance of survival. We're deep in a place of death. That that's also [clears throat] an important part of the story. Egypt is a place of death. Egypt is a place which celebrates death. They worship death. I don't know how many slaves [clears throat] they actually put in the pyramids when they built them, but it's a place which was built on death. Celebrates death. Is all about death. When kazal tell us in the zohor that they went to the 49th level of tuma it's tumat mate compounded in the worst possible way leaving Egypt is leaving Egypt is coming back to life and that's why that was all over that pyzer that this is a night of coming back to life which means sor comes back to life as it were to have a child like this yitzk has to have the aada where his life is threatened and a sword is on his head so that he can come back to life and be part of the Pes story. Should I say that again? Because you never saw the like that. That's the reason of the AKA because is Pes and Pes people come back to life. We need a symbol of somebody who comes back to life. And I know Judaism doesn't talk that much already talked about Isaiah doesn't talk that much about resurrection, but Yeitzah comes back to life because that's the story. Moshe comes back to life. He shouldn't be here. He shouldn't have been born. He shouldn't have survived. He shouldn't be alive. And all of those elements are here in order to express the exact same idea. The the impossibility of the Jewish people surviving, but it's only impossible when you look at those little snapshots along the way and you're stuck in it. And how do we get out of it? So, we have to sing. You have to just like just like Rifka said, you have to say the hollow now. You have to say the hollow because when you have that optimism and who writes those songs the ones who writes the songs is David and David leaves lives the same type of a life of this impossibility of survival because for us the very birth of the Jewish people is against nature is impossible. The very survival of the Jewish people is against all odds is insurmountably impossible. And therefore it has to take place in the spring after a long winter. Everything looks like it's dead and then things start to grow again. Goes, "Why is this happening?" No, this is our story. Because Sarah comes back to life. Y comes back to life. Yitzkah comes back to life. Moshe comes back to life. David comes back to life because that's who we are. That's where we started. That's how we got out of Egypt. And that's the eventual messianic story. The only difference going to be along the way is that the song gets louder and louder and the ability to sing gets more profound. And you get to the point that everybody can sing that it even has a spillover effect on all the animals and suddenly they're able to live together also in peace and harmony. But all of that it's right there in the story itself because coming back to life includes that element of suddenly feeling that that that brotherhood or feeling that love or feeling that identity and maybe it happened that moment with Bat Parro as well. She feels this. She sees us. I want to be a part of this story. The story that I'm in is a story of death again. It's the killing field. It's horrific. I don't want to be a part of this story. I want to be a part of life. And by matanorah as well, we're told that God sprink they all died and he sprinkles tal on all of them. They all come back to life. And Judaism is an existence of believing in the impossible. Because for us, the impossible is not just probable. The pro the impossible is the divine wish. And the divine wish is one which we understand and we're able to understand this. Then we also could be like Am Israel who are able to say Shira. And the question is at which point do we sing at which point do we celebrate and we know that our existence over here today unfortunately is always one and I don't care if you're going to identify with the dry bones that come back to life. You're going to think about a holocaust and how we somehow can walk out of Awitz and enter into the land of Israel or somehow it could be in by the nova. It could be and but they walk out and they sing. We walk out and we sing because we understand a trust and and a faith and a belief that that future is one which is part of God's will. And if it's part of the story that God wrote, now you understand that the fingerprints are here at every single step along the way. It's part of this impossibility. But that impossibility is this idea. It's Moshe. It's David. And it's really what am