Welcome to The Morning Scroll! I'm Rabbi Deena Cowans from Mishkan Chicago and you're listening to what will be a quick dive into this week's parsha. If you’ve been meaning to brush up on your Jewish literacy, or you’re looking for some inspiration, you’ve come to the right place. This week, we read Parashat Shemot, “The Names”, the beginning of the book of Exodus. We’ll start with a brief recap:
Jacob’s sons have all died, but they all had many children, who had many children, and the new Pharaoh is afraid of these numerous, strong Israelites. He decides to impose hard labor on them to keep them from continuing to grow, but nothing seems to stop the population growth. So Pharaoh’s like “Ok, let’s kill all the baby boys”, and the midwives are like “no not gonna do that”. Pharaoh is obviously not happy with them, but the midwives lie to cover for themselves, so Pharaoh says “Ok just throw the babies in the Nile”. A baby is born, named Moses, and his mother thinks, “My child seems very special, instead of throwing him in the Nile I think I’ll just float him along in a basket,” and Pharaoh’s daughter finds the baby in a basket and adopts him. Moses grows up in the palace, but one day he sees an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, so he kills the Egyptian. Pharaoh finds out, so Moses flees to Midian, where he meets a beautiful woman named Zippora, daughter of Yitro, a priest. Moses marries Zipporah and works as a shepherd for Yitro’s flocks, while his kinsfolk in Egypt are being treated so badly they cry out to God, and God hears them. One day, Moses is out with the flocks when he sees a bush on fire but not actually burning, and hears God calling to him. God says, “Moses, my people- your people- are suffering, go back and deliver them for me”. Moses says “Hard pass, thanks” but God’s like “Um that’s not how things work with me, here’s the plan.” God tells Moses to gather the elders, go ask Pharaoh permission to leave, Pharaoh’s going to say no, and then God will do all sorts of impressive things to convince Pharaoh, and eventually the Israelites will leave with many riches. Moses again says, “No, definitely can’t do that”, so God agrees to have Moses’ brother Aaron help out. Moses and his family head back to Egypt, meet up with Aaron, and head over to Pharaoh’s place. Pharaoh laughs in their faces, saying “Definitely not letting the Israelites go, actually let’s make things worse”, and has his taskmasters brutally beat the Israelites. Moses gets mad at God, saying “See what you’ve done?!” but God says, “Just wait, it’s all part of the plan…” dun dun dun.
I really feel for Moshe in this parsha. He has a complicated childhood, gets called by God into a mission he explicitly says he does not want, and then when he goes to do it, it seems like he’s getting squeezed on all sides: Pharaoh laughs in his face at his request, and then Moshe sees that God’s mission has actually made things worse for the Israelites. It seems like that last bit is actually the hardest for Moshe. Like, he could deal with having to do a task he didn’t want, and he could deal with Pharaoh’s taunts…. But seeing that he is responsible for more suffering is his breaking point. I get the sense that he would be willing to deal with the rest if he at least felt like he was making a difference.
I imagine many of us have felt like Moshe, and will continue to at moments in our lives. As parents, friends, siblings, children- we sometimes might have to do something we don’t want to do because we believe it will be helpful in the long run. So if we see or feel like we’re actually causing more harm than good, how do we react? For Moses, the answer God gives is basically, “have faith- yes things will get worse before they get better, but they will eventually get better.” Which, if I heard that answer, would be so hard for me. So I want to offer Moshe a blessing that he does indeed try to just have faith that he’s doing the right thing, that eventually things will get better even if that is so hard to see right now. And for all of you, who are feeling or might someday feel like you have faith through the pain that you’re on the right track, may you be blessed to feel that you’re making a difference, and that things get better soon.