Torah Portion Exodus 1.1-6.1

Torah Portion Exodus 1.1 - 6.1
Study for this parsha includes the JPS Tanakh and the Sh'mos edition of the book The Midrash Says, edited by Rabbi Moshe Weissman. Also I consulted Aish.com's Advanced Parsha pages. I did not attend TBI's Torah Study group this week.

One of the themes from this parsha is that royalty and wealth do not really matter in this world. The Pharaoh is snubbed over and over by people who would rather do what is right rather than what he orders. These people include slaves, midwives, his own daughter and his adopted son.

This parsha begins with an accounting of the descendants of Jacob, who were very prolific, filling the land of Egypt. Torah says the new Pharaoh did not know Joseph and was threatened by the great number of 'Apiru (later called Hebrews and Israelites), so he enslaved them before they grew so numerous they could overcome the Egyptians. Even under harsh labor, they multiplied.

Midrash says at first Pharaoh rebuked his advisors for trying to convince him to crush the Hebrews. He said, "Fools! If not for their ancestor Yosef, who saved the country in the years of famine, we all would not be alive today. How can you think of harming them?" His advisors ousted him from the throne and humiliated him. When he reclaimed the throne three months later, he had changed his mind and was ready to deal harshly with the Jews and to renounce any belief whatsoever in God.

The Rabbis recorded many reasons God may have allowed the Hebrews to become slaves. Maimonides said it was because Abraham left the Promised Land so soon after settling there rather than trusting that God would provide. (Although there is a record that God told Abraham to journey to the promised land, there is no mention of God telling Abraham to leave during the famine.) Rabbi Abarbanel said it was punishment for Jacob's sons, who treated Joseph so harshly. Because they sold Joseph into slavery, their descendants would all become slaves. Joseph's descendants were included in the punishment because Joseph was too proud. Rabbi Shmuel said it was to punish the descendants of Abraham, who questioned God's promise to make his descendants numerous. There were other reasons given, but these, (from the foreword of The Midrash Says) should serve as warning to us that even small disobediences to God could have an impact on many future generations.

The Torah does make it clear that slavery helped the Hebrews, previously scattered semi-nomads, form into a distinctive nation. Midrash says as long as Jacob's sons lived, the Hebrews were content to associate among themselves and to live honorable lives. However, over time, the Hebrews began to intermarry with the Egyptians and practice idol worship. God had no alternative but to impose harsh labor and discrimination on them to force them to come back together as a united people. Once enslaved, there were no further intermarriages. They began to speak the language of their fathers, dress differently from the Egyptians, practice chesed with each other and only give their children Jewish names.

The sages claimed Egyptian advancements and life of leisure (made possible by the sweat of Hebrews) led them into a life of sorcery, pantheism and immoral behavior. Midrash says most Hebrews abhorred their oppressors' evil ways, and that our ancestors Sarah and Joseph, who both resisted Egyptian advances, imparted all their descendants with this virtuous quality. Midrash also says the requirement to obey God, even while on call to the Egyptians 24 hours a day, has been retained in our genes to this day, proved by the fact that Jews still incorporate service to God in all our waking hours.

All of Israel supported the Levites, who were not enslaved and therefore were not fed by the Egyptians. The Levites engaged in Torah study and proper worship of God to the general population.

Midrash says by removing the men from their wives for hard labor, Pharaoh thought he would stem the "plague" of Hebrew births. To entice the men away, he promised good pay for hard work, but only paid the first month, then placed heavily armed guards to watch over the Jews as they worked without pay except for meager rations. Midrash says that the Hebrew women drew water, God placed numerous little fish in it, so the wives could prepare them to nourish their husbands, who were weary from hard labor. The women disobeyed Pharaoh's commands, endangering themselves in their desire to raise large families. They gave birth to an unprecedented number of healthy offspring, even sextuplets! When the women gave birth while working in the fields and were forced by the Egyptians to abandon their babies, God's angels fed and cleaned the infants. The earth would open to swallow the babies whenever Egyptians searched for them to kill them. The babies miraculously not only sprang up from the earth when the danger was past, but found their way home to their parents! (Midrash sometimes reads like scholarly material and sometimes like a fairy tale, with exaggeration and many hidden meanings, including social commentary.)

Pharaoh ordered Shiphrah and Puah, the midwives who served the Hebrews, to kill all the baby boys, only allowing the girls to live. The midwives, who are not identified clearly in Torah, may or may not have been Hebrews themselves. Midrash says they were none other than Yocheved, Moses' mother, and Miriam, Moses' sister. Regardless of their race, they knew God and feared his wrath. They prayed to God that all the children be born healthy and not disabled in any way so the Hebrews could not blame them for their children's afflictions. When the king summoned them to explain why no baby boys had died, they answered bravely, "Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, they are vigorous (like animals). Before the midwife can come to them, they have given birth." Midrash says the midwives told Pharaoh that the Hebrew ancestor Judah was like a lion, Benjamin, like a wolf, and Naphtali, like a hind. Somehow, Pharaoh believed the midwives and did not put them to death.

Midrash says God rewarded Miriam with a Judean husband and decedents that included the Davidic line. Yocheved became mother not only of Moses, the first Levi, but also Abraham, the first Kohen. Aish.com says Rabbi Moshe Feinstein explained the odd placement in the Torah of "the people multiplied and increased greatly" between "God dealt well with the midwives" and "because the midwives feared God, he established households for them." If the households were the only reward, they would have been mentioned immediately after "God dealt well". The placement of "households" after the "increase" of the people means that the increase was the first and greatest reward.

The Pharaoh, who intended genocide, said, "The final solution seems more complicated than I thought". He called his astrologers and counselors, who according to Midrash, told him that Jews were resistant to all means of death except drowning. Astrologers told himthat the savior of the Jews would soon be born. Pharaoh ordered the Egyptian soldiers to seize every baby boy and throw him into the Nile.

Torah says a Levite couple gave birth to a very beautiful baby boy. Midrash says they named him Tuvyah, Hebrew for "good". (Makes me think of the protagonist in Fiddler on the Roof.) The mother (identified in Midrash and in the following parsha as Yocheved) hid him for three months. We can assume she either shushed his every cry quickly (like America's plains Indians did so others passing near camp would not discover them) or that he was mute. His silence protected him. Eventually the mother felt she could no longer hide him, so she waterproofed a basket and placed the baby in it in the Nile, among the reeds so he could not be swept away. The baby's sister (named Miriam, which means "bitter" because the Egyptians made their lives bitter) stayed within eyesight of him so she could see what happened.

Midrash says Pharaoh's astrologers knew the instant the baby was placed in the water and told Pharaoh he was cast into the Nile. Pharaoh called off the edict to keep killing baby boys. Midrash also says God protected all the babies previously cast into the Nile by commanding the water to spit them out onto dry land. God ordered the rocks on one side of the river to produce honey and the other side to produce oil so the children would not go hungry.

Pharaoh's daughter (named Basya) came to bathe in the Nile. Midrash says she had leprosy. She saw the basket. Her slave girl fetched it for her. Midrash says when Basya touched the basket, her leprosy was healed. When she opened the basket, she SAW the baby boy crying. Torah does not say they heard him, but Midrash says the angel Gabriel made him emit one cry. Pharaoh's daughter pitied him, knowing he must be a Hebrew child. In the third remarkable act of bravery on the part of women, Basya decides to defy her father's order and raise the child. Miriam, in the fourth act of bravery, came forward to ask Basya if she should find a Hebrew nurse to suckle the child. When Basya consented, Miriam ran to get her own mother. The Pharaoh's daughter then offered to pay Yocheved to nurse her own child! When the child was of weaning age, she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter. Pharaoh's daughter named the child Moses, which meant she drew him out of the water. Midrash says when Moses grew older, Pharaoh placed him in charge of his household, just as a previous pharaoh did for Joseph.

We know Moses, despite his royal upbringing, thought of himself as a Hebrew and often sympathized with the oppressed. Perhaps Yocheved's brave concern for the Hebrews was passed to him. One day he went out specifically to see the labors forced upon his kin. When he saw an Egyptian mercilessly beating a Hebrew, he looked left and right and thinking no one was watching, killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. The following day he saw two Hebrews fighting and admonished the perpetrator, who answered: "Who made you chief and ruler over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?" Then Moses knew he had been seen. He was frightened. Sure enough, Pharaoh found out and tried to kill Moses, but Moses ran away. He ended up in Midian, where he stopped to rest beside a well.

Here the theme of meeting and defending kind women at a well is repeated. In fact, by now, I am beginning to think wells served as matchmakers in ancient times. Perhaps because wells are vessels that sustain life, symbolizing fertility and wombs. The seven daughters of the Midianite priest came to water their flocks, but male shepherds scared them away. "Moses rose to their defense and he watered their flock." When the girls returned home, their father was surprised that they were home so early. Apparently they often had to wait for the shepherds to leave before they could water their animals. They told their father of Moses' behavior. They described him as an Egyptian.

Their father, who we shall see is a virtuous man, was unhappy they did not invite Moses in. He summoned Moses, who accepted their hospitality. The priest gave Moses his daughter Zipporah (which means bird) as his wife. She bore him two sons. Moses, who had been brought up as Egyptian royalty, which despised shepherds, became one for his father in law.

Meanwhile, Pharaoh died, but the Hebrews were still very much enslaved. Their suffering attracted the attention of God, who remembered the Covenant he made with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Although God had told Abraham his people would be enslaved 400 years, he heard the cries of the Hebrews and decided to intervene after only 210 years. God selected Moses to be his agent.

While Moses was tending sheep, he saw a bush burning but not being consumed. I believe this was a variety of sage called Salvia Judaica, literally Save Jews! It often has seven branches, resembling a menorah. Quite a few websites believe Salvia Judaica is the inspiration for the menorah described to Moses much later, in Exodus 25:31-37. Because the plant has so much natural oil, I wonder if it could burn like a torch, like our Scotch Broom here in Oregon. You can find a very good picture of the plant here: http://www.holidayinisrael.com/ViewPage.asp?lid=1&pid=289.

Moses was fascinated by the burning bush, but realized as he drew close that he should avert his eyes. ( Kabbalah says that Moses was Abel reincarnated. Abel died young (at Cain's hand) because he looked at the Shechinah as he gave his offering. Moses had learned his lesson, humility, from his previous life.) When God called his name, Moses answered as almost all other prophets in the Tanakh would, hinieni, "Here I am!"

God commanded Moses to go to Pharaoh and ask for the release of his people. Moses made it beyond clear that he really did not want to go. (We can imagine, although Torah does not tell it, that he is afraid he would meet certain death since no doubt Pharaoh charged him with murder and treason.) Moses told God that Pharaoh would not obey him, the Israelites wouldn't believe he was their savior and that he was a poor spokesman due to a speech impediment. Finally he asked that someone else be sent in his stead, which angered God. Midrash says that Moses meant that God should send the Messiah instead, but God had reasons for choosing Moses.

The way Moses attempts to protest and bargain with God recalls Abraham's conversations with God, but God deals with Moses more harshly than he ever did with Abraham. Even though God became angry with him, Moses continued to protest all the rest of his life! (Maimonides said that God neither spoke nor had emotions to become angry. Seen through the logic of Maimonides, God's master plan, which Moses was able to perceive, became colored by Moses' own personality.)

Aish.com, quoting Pesikta Rabbasi 15:8, says Moses knew the Israelites expected 400 years of slavery and would doubt him because only 210 had passed. God gave Moses powers to perform three signs to show he was sent by God; later, as we shall see, Pharaoh's sorcerers call these signs mere magic. So I wonder why God would give signs to Moses that could be duplicated by others. Did the Israelites really need these signs? Didn't the righteous among them know the stories of the matriarchs and patriarchs? Is it possible that either they have been so crushed by slavery that they think God has deserted them? Or, as I think, is it possible that God gave these signs to Moses to increase Moses' confidence?

God told Moses He would be with him, the Israelites would believe him and they would come worship Him at this very mountain. The holy ground, where God revealed himself in a burning bush, is the same ground where God, in a cloud of smoke and fire, would give the Commandments and Torah.

Moses returned home and asked his father in law to let him see his kinsmen in Egypt. Jethro said, "Go in peace!" After God told Moses the men who wanted to kill him had died, Moses gathered his wife and sons and began traveling to Egypt. God was still angry, however, and sought to kill Moses while they were encamped. Zipporah, Moses' wife and a convert, knew exactly what to do. She quickly circumcised her son. (How could the liberator of Jews leave his own sons uncircumcised?) God then left Moses alone.

God told Aaron to meet Moses in the wilderness. Moses and Aaron kissed and talked about their instructions, then went on to meet the elders of the Israelites. Aaron did the talking and Moses performed the signs, to the Israelite's satisfaction.

Moses and Aaron approached Pharaoh together to ask for permission to take their people to worship God in the wilderness. Pharaoh mocked them, "Who is the Lord that I should heed Him and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, nor will I let Israel go." Aaron and Moses said that they had seen God, and that God might smite their people with pestilence or sword if they did not worship and sacrifice to Him.

In spite, the following day, Pharaoh ordered the taskmasters to stop providing straw for the bricks the Israelites were building. Not only were the Israelites to gather their own straw, but also they must still make as many bricks as before. Of course, the Israelites, who could not keep up and were beaten, were angry with Moses and Aaron. Moses called out to God, "Oh, Lord, why did You bring harm upon this people? Why did You send me? Ever since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Your name, he has dealt worse with this people, and still You have not delivered Your people."

Thus this parsha ends.

Rabbi David Wolpe (the author of In Speech and Silence, which among other subjects, discusses Moses' speech impediment) was quoted in the Los Angeles Times as saying that the Exodus couldn't have happened. Saying the Exodus didn't happen is almost like saying the reason for the Jews' cohesive peoplehood is a lie, like saying we didn't receive and agree to God's Covenant and did not struggle and support each other during nearly unendurable hardship. It is like denying our martyrs the reason they chose death rather than forced conversion through multiple persecutions.

Aish.com says that for most of ancient history (until Herodotus, the first relatively impartial historian, who lived 800 years after the Exodus), recorded "history" was largely propaganda, meant to support the politics of whoever was in power. Egyptians would not want to admit that escaping Hebrew slaves virtually destroyed Egypt and drowned the Pharaoh himself with God's help. Aish uses to support their argument a war in which both sides claimed to be victorious and also the fact that unlike other ancient documents, Torah presents its heroes as real people, with both strengths and faults.

This objective portrayal lends the Torah great credibility. As the writer Israel Zangwill said: "The Bible is an anti-Semitic book. Israel is the villain, not the hero, of his own story. Alone among the epics, it is out for truth, not heroics." 

I have read essays and books that refute that Israelites were ever in Egypt or ever conquered Canaan, and also essays and books that say that everything in the Bible is the word for word truth from God. I am inclined to believe that the Bible contains truth that was edited by the rabbis in exile and suffered occasionally from mistranslations. It appears from archaeological evidence that perhaps the Judges version of the takeover of Canaan (which admits that all the Canaanites were not ousted or killed) is more realistic than the Joshua version. I am not inclined to believe the entire Exodus story is fiction. So I was pleased to find the following in Aish.com:

Egyptologist Sir Alan Gardiner said of Egyptian archaeology: "It must never be forgotten that we are dealing with a civilization thousands of years old and one of which only tiny remnants have survived. What is proudly advertised as Egyptian history is merely a collection of rags and tatters." This sketchy archaeological record makes a document preserved from the Israelite slavery period even more astounding. Known as the Brooklyn Papyrus (because it is in the Brooklyn Museum), this document portrays Israelite names from the Bible as the names of domestic slaves: Asher, Yissachar, and Shifra. The document also includes the term "hapiru" which many scholars agree has clear historical affinity to the biblical term "ivrim," meaning "Hebrews."

The Bible records that Jews built the storage cities of Pitom and Ramses. Austrian archaeologist Manfred Bietak has succeeded in positively identifying the city of Pi-Ramesse. This city he found dates exactly to the period of the sojourn in Egypt, and even contains many Asiatic (of Canaanite origin) remains at the area of the slave residences. Egyptian records also tell how Pharaoh Rameses II built a new capital called Pi-Ramesse (the House of Rameses) on the eastern Nile delta, near the ancient area known as Goshen, the precise geographic area where the Bible places the Israelites.

Further, the Leiden Papyrus (another Egyptian document of that era) reports that an official for the construction of Ramasses II ordered to "distribute grain rations to the soldiers and to the Apiru who transport stones to the great pylon of Ramasses." (Apiru, as we said, is related to Hebrews.) Professor Abraham Malamat of Hebrew University infers from this that the Hebrews were forced to build the city of Ramasses. "This evidence is circumstantial at best," notes Malamat, "but it's as much as a historian can argue."

EXODUS AND DESERT WANDERING
"When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land Philistines, although that was near; For God said: "Lest the people repent when they see war and return to Egypt." (Exodus 13:17)  Prof. Malamat explains the reason for this detour: At that time in Egyptian history, and lasting for only about 200 years, there was a massive, nearly impenetrable network of fortresses situated along the northern Sinai coastal route to Canaan. Yet these same defenses were absent near Egypt's access to southern Sinai -- because the Egyptians felt the southern route was certain death in the desert. Therefore, when Moses tells the Israelites to encamp at a site that will mislead Pharaoh, the Egyptians will conclude that the Israelites "are entangled in the land, the wilderness has closed in on them" (Exodus 14:3). This, according to Malamat, "reflects a distinctly Egyptian viewpoint that must have been common at the time: In view of the fortresses on the northern coast, anyone seeking to flee Egypt would necessarily make a detour south into the desert, where they might well perish."

...Biblical criticism comes from the late archaeologist Gosta Ahlstrom. He declares: "It is quite clear that the biblical writers knew nothing about events in Palestine before the 10th century BCE, and they certainly didn't know anything of the geography of Palestine in the Late Bronze age," the time of the desert wandering and subsequent conquest of the land of Canaan. Ahlstrom's proof? He cites the biblical listing of cities along the alleged route that the Israelites traveled immediately before reaching the Jordan River -- Iyyim, Divon, Almon-divlatayim, Nevo, and Avel Shittim (Numbers 33:45-50), and reports that most of these locations have not been located, and those that were excavated did not exist at the time the Bible reports.

In the meantime, writings from the walls of Egyptian Temples say differently. It is well known that Egypt had much reason to travel to Canaan in those days; trade, exploitation, military conquest. These routes are recorded in three different Egyptian Temples -- listed in the same order as provided in the Bible, and dated to the exact period of the Israelite conquest of Canaan.

Another piece of outside verification is an ancient inscription housed in the Amman Museum. Dating to the 8th century BCE (at least), it was found in the Jordanian village of Deir Alla, which was Moabite territory in biblical times. This inscription tells of a person by the name of Bilaam ben Beor, known to the locals as a prophet who would receive his prophecies at night. These features match precisely the Bilaam described in the Bible (Numbers 21) -- his full name, occupation, nighttime prophecies. And of course, Bilaam was a Moabite.

CONQUEST OF CANAAN
...Rarely can an archaeologist claim that "this is the very item the Bible spoke about." Yet Dr. Adam Zartal, chairman of the Department of Archaeology at the University of Haifa, may have done it. Joshua 8:30-35 tells of the fulfillment of Moses' command to build an altar on Mount Eval (Deut. 27). Zartal reports that his excavation team found this very altar. The place is right, the time is right, and the animal bones are consistent with the biblical offerings. Even the style of the altar is right, in such detail, says Zartal, that it looks nearly identical to the description of the Temple's altar as described in the Talmud -- a uniquely Israelite design that no Canaanite temples used then or later.

Revisionists insist there was no such entity as "Israel" until at least the 9th century BCE. Yet a well known Egyptian inscription dated to about 1210 BCE clearly identifies an Israel in the land of Canaan as a people that had to be reckoned with. The inscription, which depicts the victories of Pharaoh Merneptah in Canaan, reads in part: "Israel is laid waste, his seed is no more." How do revisionists react to this inscription? Dismissively. Says Dever: "They denigrate it as our only known reference. But one unimpeachable witness in the court of history is sufficient. There does exist in Canaan a people calling themselves Israel, who are thus called Israel by the Egyptians -- who after all are hardly biblically biased, and who cannot have invented such a specific and unique people for their own propaganda purposes."

More: In the book of Samuel, the Philistines are reported to be expert metal workers, and in the Book of Jeremiah they are reported to have originated in Crete. Both of these details concerning the Philistines, who were off the political map by the 9th century BCE, are corroborated through archaeology. Furthermore, 1-Samuel 13:19-21 records the Israelites relying on the metal smiths of the Philistines, and a 'pym' used in the tool-sharpening process. But what this 'pym' was has been a mystery. Recent excavations found that an ancient coin weight called a "pym," which was used exclusively during the Israelite settlement period, was apparently the payment for the service of sharpening. Posits Dever: "Is it possible that a writer in the 2nd century BCE could have known of the existence of these pym weights which... would have disappeared for 5 centuries before his time? It is not possible."

Additionally, in the hill regions of Judea and Samaria (the heartland of ancient Israel), approximately 300 small agricultural villages were found, built between the 13-11th centuries BCE, the time period of the Israelite conquest of the land. According to Dever, this represented a large population increase that did not come from the native population. He writes, “Such a dramatic population increase cannot be accounted for by natural increase alone, much less by positing small groups of pastoral nomads settling down. Large numbers of people must have migrated here from somewhere else, strongly motivated to colonize an under populated fringe area of urban Canaan now in decline at the end of the Late Bronze Age.” Also, the type of house structure was unique, and matched descriptions in the books of Judges and Samuel. Additionally, all of the settlements lacked any pig remnants amongst animal bones left in the area; only the Jews had a pigless diet.

There is more; to read it for yourself, go to Aish.com, Archaeology and the Bible, Parts I and II