Shemos - 5th Portion

Join me as we learned together for Thursday parishes, the fifth Torah reading in Parish Shimos. Yesterday we learned where Moshe encounters God by the burning bush. He sees this amazing site where the bush is burning but it's not being consumed. God calls him from the bush, tells him to remove his shoes and tells him to go to Pharaoh and tell the Jewish people that they will be going out of Egypt. Moshe asks, "How should I dress and how should I tell how should I address the Jewish people to saying who you are, where you're from?" And Moshe tells them, God tells Moshe to tell the Jewish people that it's a God that was with them will take them out of this exile. Today, God continues to tell Moshe the instructions of how he should tell Pharaoh who he should collect to go with him to Pharaoh and the conversation of Moshe's negotiations back and forth with God. Verse 16, chapter 3. God tells Mosha now, "Go and gather the Jewish people. Gather the elders of the Israelites, the God of your forefathers, appear to me the god of the god of god of lamer saying he said to me god has remembered you I have indeed remembered you and what is being done to you in Egypt who are these elders these were this very special that means whenever there was a gathering they were the ones that people got together to ask them for advice and to adjudicate differences of opinion of what would happen. tamer if you may say maybe it just means older people how would Moshe go 600,000 of the older people so it must be we're talking about people that were known as the elders of the town elders of the Jewish people that they were considered the important ones amongst them and that's who he was collecting verse 17 and I have declared I will bring you up from the affliction of Egypt from the affliction of Egypt to the land of the and theites and theites and to bring you to a land that flows with milk and honey. Verse 18, they will heed your voice and you would come you and the elders of the Jewish people to the king of Egypt and you will tell the king of Egypt, the God, the God of the Hebrews, appear to us and now let us now go, let us make a journey of for a three-day journey in the desert so we can bring sacrifices to God our God. Verse 18 on their own. You're not going to have to convince them to listen to you. Once you speak to them in this type of language, immediately they will listen to you. There's already a sign given from one generation to the next when God uses the terminology or the terminology of I have remembered you that they're going to come out of exile. We see this that said that God will remember you. Yph before his passing said the same terminology that God will remember you the god of the Hebrews over here if you notice that there's a double this is alluding to the 10 plagues that will come on the Egyptians chanced upon us appear to us we find this in other places meaning that we find that God appeared the means to appear. Verse 19, and I'm telling you now, I know that the king of Egypt will not allow you to go to not until I perform and I exercise a strong hand of making miracles will he then let you go. Verse 19, meaning what does this mean? that if if I don't show him my strong hand, then he's not going to send you that until I show him my miracles and my strong hand, he's not going to allow you to go. He's not going to allow me comes from the terminology as the says not allowing. Therefore, I did not let you go. We find this in other places as well where he brings in the previous verses by that god. So if you see the words it doesn't mean literally to give means to allow all of them fine to give but giving permission those that explain as well when it talks with his great arm not that the interpretation means that until God shows him miracles but it actually it's a referring to Pharaoh that not because of Pharaoh's strong hand meaning that the very fact that Pharaoh will refuse, it's not because he is strong because you'll see that his refusing is because he thinks he's relying that he's so strong and all powerful because you'll notice that from the moment that I will come to him I will wipe out if not because he had strong arm this was said in the name of this is a different interpretation this is the way the tarum explains it as well verse 19 uh verse 20 and I will send my hand as I will stretch forth my hand and I will uh strike Egypt with all my wondrous deeds that I will do amongst them and only afterwards will he send to you. Meaning it's not because of his own might. It's only as soon as he sees the great miracles that happen, that's when he's going to allow them to go. 21 I will put the uh I will make the people favorable in the eyes of the Egyptians that I will do amongst them the I'm sorry that when the Jewish people leave Egypt, they will not go empty-handed. What's going to happen? Verse 22. Every woman shall request objects from her neighbor from her neighbor and from her the woman whose house she lodges in. They're going to ask silver vessels and gold wholes and clothing. And you will place all these things on your sons and on your daughters. is and you will thus empty out Egypt. Verse 22. What does it mean? They used to live together. That means they were neighbors and then there were people that lived in the same home. You'll ask from the woman that lives in the same home with you. What does it mean? You will save. Literally means save. But over here, you're going to empty it out. in the family. We find it later on chapter 12 when the Jewish people left. It uses the same terminology that they emptied out Egypt that the Jewish people emptied out everything there and even after the serving of the golden calf that the Jewish people were taken around their taken off their crown crowns it also uses a terminology that God emptied their crown from them. Rashi explains why this word comes to mean empty which is part of the root word. He explains about the letter with other words that go with it then God and God saved your cattle that he saved from our father. And Rashi over here however says that in this grammar I disagree with him. He doesn't think that the is from the root word because it has it. It doesn't say what they will do about something that already happened and he brings examples to this and he explains and he brings these different terminology where they mean the past not what's going to happen. Every that comes into a word which is only there temporarily but then not always is the ter for example he gives the following words it says what a person will do an activity that will come the action that will come from it you're always going to have therefore says in this case whenever I It is from the root word and it is the root word which is for a noun on its own. For example, will be saved. This is from the words which are usually used in many uh in difficult in hard places. For example, he says giving different examples where this grammat grammar would apply and how Rashi's uh translation of putting the on the first word makes it that it should be for the noun that's possessive on the word. Chapter 4. And Moshe responded to Hashem. And he said, "But they will not believe in me. They will not listen to me. They'll say, "God didn't appear to you. Where you coming from? You had some fantasies or something. God never appeared to you." So God said to him, "What is this in your hand? and he said it's a staff verse two the word maz if you look it's written two words as one was written as one word to explain what is this that you have in your hand really you should get in trouble for this you should get lashes you accused the innocent you accused the Jewish people saying they won't listen to The simple interpretations it's like somebody that tells his friend you agree that this in front of you is a stone said yeah said to him I'm going to make the stone into a piece of wood. That means what you thought is one thing I'm going to make it into something else. So it's like somebody having a negotiation or talking to his friend. What's that you got in your hand? You're going to say it's one thing and I'm going to show you it's something else as we see from the following verses. Verse three, and a god says to Moshe, "Throw it to the ground." And he threw it on the ground. Really, you deserve to be struck with it, but we're going to tell you to throw it on the ground. And it became a snake. Turned into a snake. Fled from it. Verse three. Why did God choose that it should be a snake? He was alluding to the fact that he said gossip. He said ill. Then bad words about the Jewish people and he was acting as the original snake who spoke ill as well. And therefore he shows them look this is you are behaving like the verse four. God said to Moshe, "Reach out to it and grab onto its tail. Moshe reached out and held on to it and it turned into a staff into his hand." Verse four means to hold on. There's other terminologies where you find this as well. For example, and the angels held on. This was late earlier on in the book of Genesis. anytime you have the word and afterwards it has means that they're holding on to something of it. Verse six, verse five, God said this is that the Jewish people will believe the God appear to the God of their fathers, the God of the God of the God of Yakov. Verse six. Now God gives Mos further signs and instructions other thing. Put your hand in your bosom and he put his hand and he took it out and his hand was became afflicted with Saras was white as snow. And that is because again for guilty for somebody who speaks slander there becomes gets over here same happened to Moshe the way that usually when people have leprosy it becomes white as we find it's discussed in the book of leprosy in the book of Leviticus about the laws of leprosy that if it becomes white so too because he was alluding to the fact that the Moshe spoke will kill against the Jewish people. He slandered them by saying they wouldn't listen. Because of that, he was momentarily punished with like Miriam was also punished later on with because of slander. Verse seven and God tells him now put your hand back in. And he returned his hand back and he took it out and he withdrew it. And now it resumed to have the appearance of skin. Verse seven. From here we learn. From here we learn that when God does something good, it comes quicker than something which is not good within a punishment. When initially he took it out doesn't say out of his bosom, he just took it out. Over here it says as soon as he put it in, he took it right away out and it tells us that it returned quickly back to normal flesh. Verse eight, Torah continues tells Moshe, "Now if they do not believe you, they will not heed to the first miraculous event that happened to the later one that you show them as well." That means the first one about the snake and the second one concerning about the You may ask why should they believe the later one over the earlier one? If you will tell them, you know that because I slandered you, I got because I said slander against you. They'll believe. Why? Because they knew about this because any person who was associated with anything bad was plagued with Saras. for example going previous so they know history they know stories of the past and they'll hear okay snakes they haven't heard about so you'll tell them the snake they won't believe them you tell them listen here I got because of you then they'll know that this is actually from God because they see that this is something that happened in the past and previously people have already been uh punished in such a method so therefore they'll know that this is something that happens as well verse nine And if they do not believe even in these two signs, they will not listen still not heed your voice and you'll take from water of the Nile River and you'll pour it out on the dry land and the water that you took from the Nile River will turn to blood when it's poured on the dry ground. Verse 9am, he was alluding to the fact that the first plague they are going to be punished from their own god because when God punishes the non-Jews starts with their god first because the Egyptians would serve the Nile River as their god because it would give them life and later on God turn changes it to blood. Over here the word is found twice. It seems the reason is only would have said once if the water that you take from the river will become dry. It will become blood on dry land. I would think that while he's still holding it, it becomes blood. But when he puts them, therefore, when he pours them onto the dry land, it will stay the way it was, which is blood over here. Now, if you learn the verse properly, it's teaching us. It only will become blood once it hits the dry land. In his hand will be water. Once it hits the dry land, then it will become blood. Mosha. Now Moshe tries to convince God why he again should not be the one to take to the speak to the Jewish people. Moshe, this is goes over a full week that Mosh God tries to convince Moshe to take the people out of Egypt and Moshe is continuingly reluctant to take this greater position. Now over here he says as follows says please God I beg you I am not a man of words not from yesterday not from the day before even from the time you spoke to your servant which was a week ago. I stammer. I have a I have a speech impediment and I'm not swift of the tongue. Verse 10, the is telling us that for seven days God was trying to convince Moshe seemingly standing while he was standing in front of the burning bush that he should go. That's why we see this from the words So that's three days. Three days are mentioned here. And the three times that it says they're coming to tell me that there's extra days as well. So you have six and he's standing on the seventh day when he told him please send somebody else until God got upset at him that he was refusing love and then he finally accepted the job to do it. Why was he continuously to be reluctant to take it? Because he did not want to take a job to become greater than his brother who was older than him. He was a prophet as we'll see later on. And he calls him Aaron the prophet as it says have I revealed to your father's home while he was in Egypt. And who did he reveal himself to? That was to also later on. We see this in another place as well that God says, "I've made known to them in Egypt and I told them a man who was able to see um the the fact that you had these disgusting idols with you that prophecy who was it said to was said that's the words that God says I've revealed to you. What does it mean that he has a speech impediment? I speak difficultly in the words of the old French. God responds to this reluctancy as well. And God says to Moshe, and God says to me, who gave a man a mouth, and who makes a who makes him dumb that he's not able to speak or deaf or blind or sighted or blind? I am God over here. He was alluding to the events that happened to Mosha's life. Who gave you the ability to speak when Pharaoh took you and said, "Hey, why you killed that Egyptian?" And you had to be able to say your arguments. That means you're able to speak then. God helped you speak who made Pharaoh that he wasn't able to speak that he wasn't uh desperate or work really hard to kill you and he made his uh servants deaf that they did not hear but when he told him to kill you those people that were in charge of killing you made them blind they didn't see you ran off the stage and you were able to save yourself. Is that not my name? God helped you throughout your own pain and suffering in your life saved your life. You yourself saw that you were saved in all these instances. Verse 12, now go will be with your mouth and I will tell you what to speak. Verse 13. But Moshe responds. And Moshe says, "Please God, I beg you, please send whom you usually send." The prophet who's older than me. Send him. Send the person you usually send. And this is another one. Another interpretation is send somebody who eventually is going to actually bring them into the land of Israel. I'm not going to be the one to bring them into the land of Israel. We have a lot of people that are better suited for this. Some explain as the Reb explains over here what Moshe was telling God, I want this to be the final redemption. Don't allow me just to take the Jewish people out of exile. Let this be Yo, Mashiach should already take them out of this exile. There should be only one exile and this should already bring about the ultimate redemption. However, Mosh God got angry at Moshe with this said is not your brother Aaron the Levite that he will be the one that will certainly speak. He will be going setting out to meet you and he will see you and he will be very excited says anytime we find the word that God get upset angry it makes an impact but over here we don't see the impact we don't even see a punishment that Moshe got because of that anger said and this one also we see the impact that happened to Moshe because it says aren't your brother the ley was supposed to be the not the supposed to be the coen but from now it's not going to be that way he's going to be the coen you're going to be As it says, his children will all be Levites. He's coming to greet you. You're going to go back to your father-in-law, get permission to go to Egypt, and then he's going to come and greet you. Not the way you think, oh, Aaron's going to be upset because I got a greater position. Because of that, Aaron was merited for the beautiful ornament of the breastplate that was on his heart because of the love that he showed for his brother, not the jealousy. Interestingly enough, something we see a contrast from Aaron and Moshe to all the other brothers that we see throughout history up until now. If you look throughout history, there were always debates between brothers, disputes I should say, or animosity that existed and how they dealt with it. Cain and Abel. Unfortunately, Cain killed Abel. Then you have Yeshal went off but they still didn't get along. Yakov and Asaf, he took from the blessings. They were fighting with each other. They didn't kill each other yet, but they still didn't get along as well. Yseph and his brothers, they didn't get along. They made a peace and as well, yes, they got along, but still there was a certain level of uh distrust that was there. Ephraim and Manasha. Ephraim got the blessing over Manasha. He acknowledged it. But you don't see that Ephraim says fine, man. He can go along with it. Finally, in our book of Exodus where we see Moshe and Aaron, Moshe getting a greater position than Aaron, though he's younger than him. And not only does Aaron not have any mistrust or animosity or hatred towards it, but on the contrary, the Torah points out the he was excited and he was happy for his brother's benefit. Verse 15. You will speak to him and you will put the words in his mouth and I will be with his mouth and your mouth and with your his in his mouth and I will instruct you what you should do. Verse 16 and he will speak to the people for you. and he will serve as your mouth and you will be for him his mentor. Meaning you will be like his god. He will tell him directly what to speak what I said and so on. Verse 16 for you will speak to the people. This will prove that anytime you have the word which is next to the word they mean about or to for he'll be like your interpreter because you complain that you haven't speeched until he'll explain it as a mentor what to say and how to say it. Verse 17, this staff you will take with you which you will perform the miraculous signs with. This concludes the fifth Torah reading for Thursday paras.