And the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of whom the name of the one was Shifrah, and the name of the second Puah…………………(Exodus 1:15)
The king of Egypt had a scheme to murder the male newborns of the Israelites. He wanted the Hebrew midwives to kill the male newborns at birth. However, these righteous woman ignored his command. Rashi comments on the names of these midwives as follows: " Shifrah-this is Yochevet, she was called Shifrah because she adorned the child. (She cleaned the child after birth. Yochevet is also Mosha's mother.) Puah-this is Miriam, she was called Puah because she would murmur to the child in order to pacify the child's wailing like saying "Pu Pu Pu". (This was Mosha's sister.) Why does the Torah have to go out of its way to enumerate the various names of the midwives as explained by Rashi? Why are their activities as midwives so important? The Torah is teaching us a very important lesson, Bezrat Hashem. Every action a person does is recorded and acknowledged by G-d. Nobody can possibly hide from G-d, its impossible. No act should ever be deemed insignificant; especially seemingly small acts of kindness. A person might not even consider the activities of the midwives to be of any significance, yet the Torah makes it significant. Small acts of everyday kindness are valuable indeed. Can we possibly afford to neglect the treasure trove of good deeds that are blatantly before us?
This week we start the first sedra from the book of Shemos, which starts with what appears to be a small recap on the names of the children of Yaakov who came down to Egypt originally. The mefarshim ask on the purpose of this seemingly redundant passage, as surely we were told who settled in the land at the end of the book of Bereishis? Furthermore we know that the Torah doesn’t use a single extra letter without meaning to it, let alone a whole chunk of text, so what is the reason that the Torah needs to state the names of the brothers this additional time? Answers Rashi that since the brothers were being mentioned here for the last time before their generation expired they were counted by Hashem out of love. He goes on to explain that beloved things are counted over and over again as an action of affection, for example a child with his toys or to give a more shallow representation, a person with his money. Ramban and indeed the Baal HaTurim
I would like to start this weeks Dvar Torah, by taking a glimps into an event of last weeks - one word in particular!
When Yaakov calls his children to give them his final brocho, we know that Hashem prevented him to reveal the future. However Nesivos Shalom said that the word "He'asfu" was the hidden secret, remedy and cause for Geula!. We have to be united, like they were told back then by Yaakov's bed!
Now to this weeks Parsha - and the link!
You might think that Pharoh's decision to enslave the Jews was financially-motivated; that he saw the bnei Yisrael as a cheap source of labor to build grand edifices for his pleasure, from Pitom to the Pyramids.
But the truth is that Pharoh was less concerned with building up Egypt's cities than he was with breaking down our spirit. And so chazal tell us he had the "Hebrew slaves" construct "Arey Miskanot," literally, "pitiful cities." They were constructed in such a fashion that they would crumble to the ground soon after they were built, thus demoralizing the workers, who now could take no pride in their work, and had to start over again on what was clearly just "busy work."
Maayanah Shel Torah (by R’ Alexander Zusia Friedman, Poland 1937) relates the story of 2 brothers who were disciples of the Rebbe of Lublin. Both brothers served as Chassidic Rebbeim themselves, yet one brother had a large following and the other only had a small group of Chassidim. The brother with a few followers once asked the second brother, why is it that despite being of equally piety and disciples from the same Rebbe, he has less followers then his brother. The second responded that he too asks the question why he has more followers then his brother. The brother continued and said that in both cases the question is also the answer.
The Avnei Azel states that humility was the reason itself why Moses was chosen to lead the Nation out of Egypt.
The Gemara in Sota 12a relates that after Pharaoh decreed that every male child be slaughtered Amram, divorced his wife, to escape the pain of losing a child. He was soon followed by all the Israelites. The Gemama relates that Amram then sought the counsel of his daughter who rebuked him saying that whilst Pharaoh’s decree
This Torah thought is being dedicated to my beloved father, Nachman Shimon ben Yehuda Meir Hakohan, Z"L.
And the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of whom the name of the one was Shifrah, and the name of the second Puah…………………(Exodus 1:15)
The king of Egypt had a scheme to murder the male newborns of the Israelites. He wanted the Hebrew midwives to kill the male newborns at birth. However, these righteous woman ignored his command. Rashi comments on the names of these midwives as follows: " Shifrah-this is Yochevet, she was called Shifrah because she adorned the child. (She cleaned the child after birth.
Yochevet is also Moshe's mother.) Puah-this is Miriam, she was called Puah because she would murmur to the child in order to pacify the child's wailing like saying "Pu Pu Pu"(This was Moshe's sister.)
Why does the Torah have to go out of its way to enumerate the various names of the midwives as explained by Rashi? Why are their activities as midwives so important?
My son…the shepherd
It seems rather interesting that so many prophets (and leaders) of the Jewish People were shepherds. See, we weren’t always doctors and lawyers. Avraham seemed to dabble in shepherding, Yitzchak was a shepherd, and Yaakov chose this line of work too. Moreover, later on in history, David HaMelech was a shepherd also, amongst others. The reason that this is relevant to our sedra is that immediately before Moshe receives the burning bush prophecy, the pasuk (3:1) reports that ‘Moshe was shepherding,’ almost as if to say that his occupation as a shepherd was conducive to, or in some way caused, his prophecy. Howzat? The Kli Yakar (3:1) poses this very question; is it just a coincidence that many prophets were shepherds? As with most (if not all) things in Torah, the answer is no - it’s no coincidence. As the Kli Yakar says, a shepherd simply has more time in the great outdoors to contemplate the wonders of HaShem’s creation. Moreover, a shepherd has time alone to think things over and reach a certain level of spiritual purity. This is in stark contrast to the fact that Pharaoh tried to busy the Jews as much as possible with slavery so that they would not have time to think about life - as the Mesillas Yesharim points out.
I see a(nother) head!
The Midrash Rabbah (1:8) says that in Egypt the Bnei Yisrael gave birth to six babies at once (don’t worry - angels came and looked after the kids throughout their youth until their teenage years - so it was not a constant nappy-changing affair). Now where is this hinted at in the Torah? The Midrash (and Ba’al HaTurim) point out that the six phrases in 1:7 ‘and Bnei Yisrael multiplied, swarmed, increased, strengthened, very much’ hint at these sextuplet births. However, as the Mizrachi points out, it seems that Rashi did not learn like this. For Rashi (1:7) points out that the women of Bnei Yisrael had six babies in one go from the third phrase of the pasuk (vayishretzu). If Rashi held like the Ba’al HaTurim then he should have put this observation on all the phrases of the pasuk - or at least on the last word. As the Sifsei Chachamim say, it seems that Rashi is explaining the pasuk according to one opinion brought in the Yalkut; that the hint to these sextuplet births is from the interesting word vayishretzu alone. How? For vayishretzu comes from the word sheretz (an insect/creature), and apparently there are some sheratzim that give birth to six children at once.
In our sedra (2:14), Rashi brings an important Midrash which we must get to the bottom of. A young Moshe goes out of Pharaoh's palace and sees two Jews fighting. After trying to break in up, one of these Jews turns round to Moshe and says 'are you going to kill me like you killed the Egyptian!?' and Moshe responds (perhaps silently) 'aha, the matter is known.' What was known? Rashi (in his 2nd pshat) brings our Midrash, which reveals that because of this Jew's response to Moshe, Moshe gained an understanding of the slavery the Jewish People were in. How so? For Moshe was bothered by why the Jews should be in such harsh slavery - what sins had they done more than any other nation? And once he heard the Lashon Hara emerge from the mouth of this Jew, Moshe had the answer to his niggling question.
But we need to understand this; why was Lashon Hara the
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