Moses' Beginnings

Parshat Shmot
Exodus 1:1 – 6:1

The book of Exodus begins four hundred years after the end of Genesis, by recounting that the descendants of Jacob flourished and multiplied in Egypt “and the land was filled with them.” Then arises a new Pharaoh in Egypt who did not remember Joseph and he perceives the numerous Israelites as a potential threat. Therefore, the Egyptians enslave the Israelites, making life bitter for them. The Pharaoh instructs midwives to kill all male children born to Israelite women. When the midwives, fearing God, do not obey, Pharaoh orders all newborn boys drowned in the Nile River.

Now a certain couple of the house of Levi bear a son and hide him for three months. When the infant can no longer be hidden, his mother sets him afloat in the Nile River in a wicker basket. Miriam, the boy’s sister, is stationed to watch what will become of him. The Pharaoh’s daughter finds the infant and resolves to save him. Miriam arranges for her own mother to nurse and tend him.

When the child is grown, he is brought to the Pharaoh’s daughter to live in the palace as her son. She names him Moses, meaning “drawn out” of the water. When Moses is grown, he kills an Egyptian taskmaster who was beating a Hebrew slave. He is forced to flee Egypt. He goes to Midian, where he becomes a shepherd, a husband, and a father.

One day, while Moses is tending his sheep, God appears to him in a burning bush. God instructs Moses that he is to lead the Israelites out of Egypt and into the land of Canaan. When Moses protests his inadequacy for the task, God gives him signs through which he is to convince the Israelites and Pharaoh. His brother Aaron is appointed to be his spokesperson. Moses and his wife Tzipporah and his sons begin to journey back to Egypt. One night, God encounters him [it is unclear whether the text refers to Moses or his son] and seeks to kill him. Tzipporah quickly circumcises her son and God leaves him alone.

Moses and Aaron go to Pharaoh demanding, in the name of God, that the Israelites be permitted to leave Egypt to worship God in the wilderness, but the Pharaoh refuses to heed them. Instead he increases the labor of the Israelites, refusing now to provide them with the straw they need to make bricks.
(Synopsis courtesy of Teaching Torah, by Sorel Goldberg Loeb and Barbara Binder Kadden)

Questions for your Shabbat table:

• In Pharaoh’s palace, all the princes went to lessons taught by the priests of Egypt– Moses probably went, too. What kinds of subjects do you think Moses studied? What might he have learned that would help him later to become a leader for his people?
• In Genesis, there are many stories about conflicts between siblings (Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his brothers), yet in contrast, this first portion of the book of Exodus shows cooperation between siblings. What is an example of cooperation between Moses and his brother and/or sister? Which pattern is more common in your family – conflict or cooperation?
• In this parsha, the midwives help protect the babies who could not protect themselves. Who helps protect you?