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Reading the Book of Exodus (Shemot)
Pessah is arguably “the single most popular and widely observed rite of Judaism.”
The holiday’s significance is grounded on a Judaism pregnant with meaning capable of harnessing the power of ideas and experiences that enrich and enlighten lives, a Judaism that engages and powers the community to work for a better world, not a Judaism based on nostalgia and ritual.
For this, the message of the holiday has to be heard and mulled over. It's challenging to accomplish this during the Seder. Despite what might seem paradoxical, the story from where the Pessah celebration arose is not found in the Haggadah- which is read aloud during the Seder- but in the first fifteen chapters of the second book of the Torah: Shemot (Exodus).
Pessah
Monday, April 29
Last Day
of Rabbi Moshe Pitchon
The Commentaries
A story is told about two Israelis on a trip to Switzerland. They stop a passerby, hoping he will be able to indicate to them how to get to the address they were looking for. The friendly…
“ Our country doesn’t have a problem with Jews. Our Prophet Muhammad married a Jewish woman. Not just a friend—he married her. Our neighbors were Jewish,”
Though Israel is still a secular country where secular Jews account for 36 percent of the population
it is estimated that by 2059, the Haredi community will constitute 35% of the Jewish population in Israel.”
Notwithstanding its shortcomings, Israel is still one of the Middle East’s rare functioning democracies, with an intense public debate. Its press is combative and free. Moreover, a significant layer of intellectually and politically active people steers public discussions toward the core issues of its society.
תנ׳׳ך
TaNaKh
Reading the Book of Exodus-שמות Today
To paraphrase Yeshayahu Leibowitz, Jews do not keep their faith because of the miracles they experience. It is their faith that leads them to interpret their life as miraculous.
Starting with the Book of Exodus (Shemot)- and throughout the following three remaining books of the Torah- the figure of Moses is the guiding force. He is, in fact the single most central figure in the TaNaKh.
The Pharaoh of the Book of Exodus is possessed of a ruthless and stubborn character. He is an egocentric, unemotional human being, devoid of all compassion, incapable of feeling the pain of others, shame, or guilt.
What really happened that night, on that day hundreds and hundreds of years ago, when the Book of Exodus tells us that
Pharaoh rose up in the night, he, and all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt… And he called for Moses and Aaron by night and said: ‘Rise up, get you forth from among my people, both ye and the children of Israel; and go, serve the Lord, as you have said. Take both your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and be gone; and bless me also.’
“The Hebrew midwives disobey Pharaoh. His own daughter thwarts him, and her maidens assist. This Egyptian princess schemes with female slaves, mother and daughter, to adopt a Hebrew child whom she names Moses. As the first to defy the oppressor, women alone take the initiative which leads to deliverance.”
all through Jewish history, from the Exodus to the Maccabean Revolt to the rising from the ashes of the Nazi Holocaust to the creation of the modern State of Israel, the end result was not the to-be-expected consequences. It was something that surprised even the most optimistic speculations about human capacity.
“…we cannot ignore the possible inclusion of the expulsion of the Hyksos in the source materials which was available for literary activities. One may assume that the Hyksos experience was retold in different ways and in different circles through time. This is not to say that the Hyksos experience should be identified with the story about the Israelites living Egypt. However, the Hyksos event could have been part of the … common tradition which the biblical narrator used for background […] exodus and the consequent wanderings in the wilderness are part of a historical chain of happening and traditions […]”
Line- by- line Biblicaltext and commentaries: https://www.21stcenturyjudaism.com/the-book-of-exodus/
Jewish Holidays
The unpredictable, inexplicable help that we encounter With the exodus from Egypt, something radically new happened: history took an unexpected turn, and the world suddenly changed. Exodus, the book that recounts this event, tells us that…
Jewish Theology
“The four centuries in Egypt pass without a tale worth telling. As with much of Israel’s desert period and the later Babylonian captivity, the Bible considers this sojourn devoid of noteworthy events.”
This kind of historical “blackout” has driven critics to ask: “What was God doing during those years the Israelites suffered under the Egyptians?”
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