Portion 13 Sh’mot Exodus 1:1-6:1
1:10 Pharaoh equates earthly wisdom with the need for coercive means to bring about his desired ends. This is the primal transgression from the Garden of Eden, to do evil so that perceived good may come.
1:11 A few generations after Joseph makes serfs of the Egyptians, Pharaoh makes slaves of the Israelites.
1:17 If the Israelite population is as large as Pharaoh claims, then the two midwives that Pharaoh speaks to could be the heads of two midwifery guilds. In that case, the success of their coordinated civil disobedience campaign is even more impressive. Pharaoh could also be greatly exaggerating the size of the immigrant population to shore up nativist support and to deflect blame for economic hardship away from Pharaoh.
1:19 Using a tactic that Saul Alinsky would be proud of, the midwives use Pharaoh’s racist beliefs about the Israelites to evade blame for failing to carry out Pharaoh’s genocidal commands.
1:22 Pharaoh now stirs up nativist sentiment and orders a pogrom against Israelite male children. Pharaoh does not fear women but it is his own daughter’s defiance of Pharaoh’s order that will lead to the liberation of the Israelites.
2:5 Is Pharaoh’s daughter’s presence at the Nile a premeditated plan to defy her father’s order? Tradition assumes that Pharaoh’s daughter is aware that the nursemaid is the baby’s mother and that there is an unspoken understanding between Pharaoh’s daughter and Moses’s sister and mother.
2:12 Why doesn’t Moses use his authority, as Pharaoh’s daughter’s son, to order the Egyptian to stop? Instead he uses physical violence.
2:14 I would like to propose a Midrash that the speaker is Moses’s older brother Aaron. Perhaps this speaks to a long term resentment that Aaron feels about Moses’s royal status. Perhaps Moses has taken advantage of his status in the past in his relations with his older brother Aaron. This would fit with the sibling rivalry stories in Genesis, especially the Joseph cycle, where Joseph’s older brothers are resentful that Joseph is their overseer.
2:15 Moses is guilty of the sin of Cain and suffers Cain’s punishment of exile from his community.
2:17 Why would shepherds be so disrespectful of the priests daughters?
3:13 Moses does not yet fully identify with the Israelites. He refers to the “God of your fathers” instead of “our fathers.”
3:15 Why does God not correct this in his answer to Moses?
3:18 God tells Moses to approach Pharaoh with the Elders of Israel.
3:22 Those slaves who must stay behind will support those who leave by offering what they have, even if all that they have is just the clothes off there backs.
4:18 For the first time, Moses acknowledges his kinship with the Israelites. Moses’s father-in-law urges him to use peaceful means to achieve the liberation of his people.
4:19 Apparently Moses must have been stalling so God, for the second time, commands him to go to Egypt.
4:24 Moses again stalls. Moses has a confrontation with God similar to what Jacob experienced before his reconciliation with Esau. Perhaps, in addition to his fear of confronting Pharaoh, Moses is also fearful of asking forgiveness of his brother Aaron. Perhaps Moses had used his royal status to mistreat Aaron in the past.
4:26 The Midianites are descended from Abraham through Keturah. Circumcision, in addition to any other meaning it has, would also symbolize the blood relationship between Israelites and Midianites. Zipporah is reassuring Moses that their marriage is within the bloodlines of the children of Abraham. Egyptians also practiced circumcision. Perhaps, just as Jeremiah does in 9:24-25, Zipporah is also making the point that circumcision symbolizes the brotherhood between all peoples and, like her father, she is urging Moses to be peaceful towards his Egyptian brothers and to leave vengeance to God.
4:27 Although God told Moses that he would be acting as a god to his brother Aaron, it is Aaron, who through his forgiveness and reconciliation, is God’s third call for Moses to go back to Egypt.
5:1 Moses and Aaron have their meeting with Pharaoh, but not with the elders of Israel. Why are they not part of the delegation?
5:4 Because Moses and Aaron do not have the elders with them, Pharaoh is able to portray them as a couple of trouble makers.
5:6 Pharaoh imposes much harsher labor than ever before to enlarge the division between Israelite elders and foreman on the one hand and Moses and Aaron on the other.
6:1 In the face of this defeat, only faith that God will prevail can keep Moses and Aaron on their nonviolent course and away from the temptations of submission or violence.
1:10 Pharaoh equates earthly wisdom with the need for coercive means to bring about his desired ends. This is the primal transgression from the Garden of Eden, to do evil so that perceived good may come.
1:11 A few generations after Joseph makes serfs of the Egyptians, Pharaoh makes slaves of the Israelites.
1:17 If the Israelite population is as large as Pharaoh claims, then the two midwives that Pharaoh speaks to could be the heads of two midwifery guilds. In that case, the success of their coordinated civil disobedience campaign is even more impressive. Pharaoh could also be greatly exaggerating the size of the immigrant population to shore up nativist support and to deflect blame for economic hardship away from Pharaoh.
1:19 Using a tactic that Saul Alinsky would be proud of, the midwives use Pharaoh’s racist beliefs about the Israelites to evade blame for failing to carry out Pharaoh’s genocidal commands.
1:22 Pharaoh now stirs up nativist sentiment and orders a pogrom against Israelite male children. Pharaoh does not fear women but it is his own daughter’s defiance of Pharaoh’s order that will lead to the liberation of the Israelites.
2:5 Is Pharaoh’s daughter’s presence at the Nile a premeditated plan to defy her father’s order? Tradition assumes that Pharaoh’s daughter is aware that the nursemaid is the baby’s mother and that there is an unspoken understanding between Pharaoh’s daughter and Moses’s sister and mother.
2:12 Why doesn’t Moses use his authority, as Pharaoh’s daughter’s son, to order the Egyptian to stop? Instead he uses physical violence.
2:14 I would like to propose a Midrash that the speaker is Moses’s older brother Aaron. Perhaps this speaks to a long term resentment that Aaron feels about Moses’s royal status. Perhaps Moses has taken advantage of his status in the past in his relations with his older brother Aaron. This would fit with the sibling rivalry stories in Genesis, especially the Joseph cycle, where Joseph’s older brothers are resentful that Joseph is their overseer.
2:15 Moses is guilty of the sin of Cain and suffers Cain’s punishment of exile from his community.
2:17 Why would shepherds be so disrespectful of the priests daughters?
3:13 Moses does not yet fully identify with the Israelites. He refers to the “God of your fathers” instead of “our fathers.”
3:15 Why does God not correct this in his answer to Moses?
3:18 God tells Moses to approach Pharaoh with the Elders of Israel.
3:22 Those slaves who must stay behind will support those who leave by offering what they have, even if all that they have is just the clothes off there backs.
4:18 For the first time, Moses acknowledges his kinship with the Israelites. Moses’s father-in-law urges him to use peaceful means to achieve the liberation of his people.
4:19 Apparently Moses must have been stalling so God, for the second time, commands him to go to Egypt.
4:24 Moses again stalls. Moses has a confrontation with God similar to what Jacob experienced before his reconciliation with Esau. Perhaps, in addition to his fear of confronting Pharaoh, Moses is also fearful of asking forgiveness of his brother Aaron. Perhaps Moses had used his royal status to mistreat Aaron in the past.
4:26 The Midianites are descended from Abraham through Keturah. Circumcision, in addition to any other meaning it has, would also symbolize the blood relationship between Israelites and Midianites. Zipporah is reassuring Moses that their marriage is within the bloodlines of the children of Abraham. Egyptians also practiced circumcision. Perhaps, just as Jeremiah does in 9:24-25, Zipporah is also making the point that circumcision symbolizes the brotherhood between all peoples and, like her father, she is urging Moses to be peaceful towards his Egyptian brothers and to leave vengeance to God.
4:27 Although God told Moses that he would be acting as a god to his brother Aaron, it is Aaron, who through his forgiveness and reconciliation, is God’s third call for Moses to go back to Egypt.
5:1 Moses and Aaron have their meeting with Pharaoh, but not with the elders of Israel. Why are they not part of the delegation?
5:4 Because Moses and Aaron do not have the elders with them, Pharaoh is able to portray them as a couple of trouble makers.
5:6 Pharaoh imposes much harsher labor than ever before to enlarge the division between Israelite elders and foreman on the one hand and Moses and Aaron on the other.
6:1 In the face of this defeat, only faith that God will prevail can keep Moses and Aaron on their nonviolent course and away from the temptations of submission or violence.
posted by ross at 1:27 AM
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