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RA & USCJ, Etz Chayim: Torah and Commentary, p. 351

This is the last time that rhe divine name Elohim/justice appears in any speech of God to Moses. Henceforth it will always be YHVH/mercy..."God of your fathers" is the God of Genesis; YHVH is the God of Exodus.

Rabbi Mark Borovitz, Finding Recovery and Yourself in Torah, p. 93

God makes God known to each of us in different ways, as each name of God represents a different attribute. I see how I know only certain parts of the people in my life, and this saddens me. Sadness is a difficult emotion for me to experience; typically I move quickly to feeling angry when I realize that people are hiding from me. It also makes me wonder if and how I am hiding myself from other people. We all are ashamed of parts of ourselves, afraid what people will think, and conditioned to politely put on “company manners” for the world to see. Considering my own history, I find that this kind of hiding is what led me to addictive behaviors, and even in my active addiction I was still hiding parts of myself. I now know that God is calling to us to come closer, to become partners.

Rabbi Joshua Mikutis, The Mussar Torah Commentary, pp. 91-92

The Chatam Sofer sees a linguistic connection between avot (אָבוֹת), the word for “ancestors,” and the verb le-evot (לֶאֱבוֹת), “to want or desire.” He claims that “the Holy Blessed One connects with those who have longings for God.” The Chatam Sofer connects his understanding of the immediate importance of our longing for God to the Ramban’s interpretation of God’s famous and opaque self-description, Ehyeh asher ehyeh (אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה), “I will be that I will be” (Exodus 3:14) as “Just as you are with Me, so I will be with you.” The Ramban and Chatam Sofer both suggest that God’s presence is directly linked to our capacity to cleave to God. This is an empowering idea—our actions in the world can change the essence of the Divine. Moses may experience himself as alone and useless, but just as earlier he did not necessarily perceive the impact of his words on the oppressed Israelites, here he might miss that his engagement with God has divine repercussions. When we feel that we are failing, we wallow in our loneliness; but if we look outside of ourselves, we can see those whose legacies sustain us. Here, God also reminds Moses that it is not just God who is in relationship with Moses, but that Moses too is connected to our Patriarchs and Matriarchs before him through God’s revelation of God’s self in the world. Practicing anavah may help us to realize that we are not alone when we attempt to change the world. We are part of a story much larger than our own. When we understand our place within a Jewish story that began thousands of years ago, we can hearken back to those who have handled moments of deep pain and difficulty before us and find strength.

Bono, Xanax and Wine

Don't you worry about the day/ The day the pain it goes away/ I know I miss mine sometimes

Rabbi Bradley Artson, The Everyday Torah, p. 99, Kindle edition

Abandoning the pretense of our own self-sufficiency can open doors to a deeper sustenance. Releasing our own delusions of power and control can permit us to flow with currents far more profound than our own. Turning our destiny back to the One who actually writes the script can be both liberating and a source of deep illumination. By feeling the fullness of despair, the Israelites became open to the possibility of liberation.

Rabbi Joshua Mikutis, The Mussar Torah Commentary, p. 91, Kindle edition

Menachem Mendel parses the verse carefully. He explains that the text is very specific to say l’kolecha rather than use b’kolcha—that is, “to your voice” rather than “in your voice”—implying a looser connection between Moses’s words and the people. The text seeks to say, “It is your voice alone that the people will listen to, not the specific content of your words,” since, at this point, the people are too spiritually and physically oppressed to understand the fine details of their redemption. However, even if they cannot hear Moses’s words, they can hear his voice. They can tell that in their hour of sorrow and pain, God’s servant is there for them...With the right dose of anavah, we can see that the results of our work might not be what we expected; but, balanced with the right amount of confidence in who we are, we can still bring good into the world. Moses’s effect on the people is not the anticipated one, but it is powerful nonetheless.

RA & USCJ, Etz Chayim: Torah and Commentary, p. 352

The stages of Redemption: 'I will free you' from physical enslavement in Egypt; I will 'deliver you' from the psychological mind-set of being a slave; which might persist even after you have been physically liberated; "I will redeem you" so that you will think of yourselves as free people; and "I will take you" into a special relationship with Me, for that is the ultimate goal of your liberation.

Rashi in Pirkei Avot, 3:14

(14) He used to say: Beloved is man for he was created in the image [of God]. Especially beloved is he for it was made known to him that he had been created in the image [of God], as it is said: “for in the image of God He made man” (Genesis 9:6).

Rambam, via Leibowitz, Studies in Shemot, v. 1, p. 125

The becoming aware of one's good fortune can itself be a further instance of good fortune.

Rabbi Shefa Gold, Torah Journeys, p. 68

When Moses tells the people what God has said, they cannot hear it...Listening is the first step in the process of liberation. The first challenge to listening is 'shortness of spirit.' This is sometimes translated as 'impatience.' The process of liberation requires great patience and discipline to take the small, necessary steps that will not necessarily relieve our immediate pain...Hard slavery is the second challenge to the kind of listening that could lead us to freedom. Listening is only possible when there is a degree of stillness and spaciousness.

Rabbi Joshua Mikutis, in The Mussar Torah Commentary, p. 90, Kindle edition

Moses’s struggles offer several lessons about how to behave when failure stares us down. The parashah can help us understand that our stumbles should lead us to reassess how we relate to ourselves, the Divine, and our own narrative. The world is unpredictable—but it is critical that we stay present.

Dr. Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, The Particulars of Rapture, p. 111, Kindle edition

The double bind is that although the capacity to hear the word of God, to take the deep breath, is the very condition of redemption, it is only after redemption that one is equipped to hear, to breathe.

RA & USCJ, Etz Chayim: Torah and Commentary, p. 353

The last phrase, 'cruel bondage,' can also mean 'because of impatience and hard work.' Was it because slavery was so hard and exhausting and left them weary, unable even to envision the possibility of change? the Hebrew translated as 'their spirits crushed' (kotzer ru-ah) can literally mean ''their spirits were stunted.' Or was it because they sensed that freedom would require hard work - that it would not happen quickly or easily?

Dr. Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, The Particulars of Rapture, p. 83, Kindle edition

God’s will, His message of redemption, is blocked by all three human protagonists: by Pharaoh, by the Israelites, and by Moses himself.

Maggid Jhos Singer, Torah Queeries, p. 80

What a provocative image—uncircumcised lips. What could it possibly mean? To my imagination, this verse both sexualizes and constrains Moses. He is poised to speak, to deliver a message that could change the world, and he falters. He is either going to remain silent, be misunderstood, or have to slice away the foreskin of his mouth. I imagine him holding still, unspeaking, keeping his truth inside, eyes darting, heart racing, breath shallow. I imagine him mumbling, straining to be heard, but met with furrowed and confused brows. I imagine him with a ruby wound around his freed lips, speaking in agony, his beard streaked crimson. I can feel his frustration, desperation, and anger at having been chosen to deliver God’s message of liberation.

Nehama Leibowitz, Studies in Shemot, vol. 1, p. 147

Others have understood the concluding phrase 'to bring out the children of Israel' as constituting the actual command. Not only Pharaoh had to be persuaded to let the children of Israel go but Moses and Aaron had to persuade the children of Israel to leave Egypt, to willingly accept freedom with all its responsibilities and submit to the yoke of Heaven, rejecting the easier course of being ruled by others. This applied not only to the exodus from Egypt but to the exodus of the Jewish people throughout history from the countries of their dispersion. The Midrash lends force to this interpretation with its amazing insight into the eternities of Jewish history: 'There were transgressors in Israel who had Egyptian patrons and lived in affluence and honour and were loathe to leave...'

Maggid Jhos Singer, Torah Queeries, p. 83

Our “coming in” instantly impels us to “come out”—to tell our story, to challenge Pharaoh to free our people. Some of us, like Aaron, will immediately blaze forward and become full-time professional queers, and thank God for that! But the bulk of us will stumble, bumble along, wondering how anything as personal as whom we love or how we feel in our own skins is anybody’s business. Who would not want to bask in the glow of wholeness and never have to come out, ever? Most of us would like to just stay in Midian, minding our own business, as if nothing had happened. But we have to leave, and we have to go back to Egypt. Like Moses, we will question God when God tells us we are the right person for the job, and balking quietly we will head out for Egypt.

RA & USCJ, Etz Chayim: Torah and Commentary, p. 356

Although 'hardening Pharaoh's heart' seems deterministic, events flow naturally from the ambitions and conflicts of a huan being, Pharaoh, who is seized with the delusion of self-sufficiency.

RA & USCJ, Etz Chayim: Torah and Commentary, p. 356

Maimonedes writes: 'Sometimes a man's offense is so grave that he forecloses the possibility of repentance. At first [Pharaoh] sinned repeatedly of his own free will, until he forfeited the capacity to repent.'

Ibn Ezra on Exodus 7:3

(1) AND I WILL HARDEN PHARAOH’S HEART. The question arises: “If God hardened Pharaoh’s heart what was his transgression and what was his sin?” The answer is: God granted wisdom to man and implanted in his heart the intelligence to receive power from on high to add to his good or to diminish his evil.

Dr. Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, The Particulars of Rapture, p. 104

I am suggesting that Pharaoh becomes a demonic expression of the human desire to be unchanging and invulnerable, like God. The power of this idea is rooted in the knowledge that it is not unequivocally evil. When God decides to expel Adam and Eve from Paradise, for instance, there is a compelling ambiguity in a traditional reading of God’s speech: “And the Lord God said, ‘Now that the man has become like one of us, knowing good and bad, what if (pen) he should stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever!’ ” (Gen 3:22). ...God does not regard such an eventuality—that the couple will eat of the Tree of Life and live forever—as totally unthinkable. It is a possibility that is built into the nature of things.

Nehama Leibowitz, Studies in Shemot, p. 171

Ten times in all do we find mention of 'knowing the Lord,' in the chapters dealing with the ten plagues.

Abravanel, cited by Nehama Leibowitz, Studies in Shemot, p. 172

It was for this that the plagues came - to confirm these three principles. The first three plagues came to prove God's existence. The next three asserted the providence of God. The last three came to substantiate the third principle that God can change the nature of things at will.

Shemot Rabbah 9:6-7

(6) 6. "And also called Pharaoh to the wise men and to the sorcerers." At that instant, Pharaoh began to laugh at them [Moses and Aaron] and to screech at them like a chicken, and to say to them: 'Thus are the signs of your G-d? The way of the world is for people to ply their wares in a place that needs them. Nobody brings fish broth to Espamia [Spain], Fish to Ako [All places already well-supplied with fish]. Do you not know that all the sorcerers are under my dominion?' Immediately [Pharaoh] sent for and brought in children from their school. And they did exactly [as Aaron had done]. And not only that! But Pharaoh even called his own wife in and she did exactly [as Aaron had done]...Yohani and Mamreh [two Egyptian sorcerers] said to Moses: 'You have brought grain to Aphri'im [A city will plenty of grain].' [Moses] responded to them: 'To a city of vegetables, take vegetables' [i.e. to impress people, bring what they appreciate]. "

RA & USCJ, Etz Chayim: Torah and Commentary, p. 357

The confrontation here is not only between Moses and Pharaoh's magicians but also between miracles and magic. In magic, humans try to impose their will on God. Miracles demonstrate God's greatness beyond the limits of human power. Miracles, although they may use a human instrument, are part of a larger divine design.

Rabbi David Kasher, ParshaNut, p. 134, Kindle edition

Now a rod doesn’t swallow anything. It doesn’t have a mouth. So what’s going on here? I think what Rashi’s comment suggests is that the real power of this moment lay in a kind of parody of magic. At the very moment when it seemed that nothing more than a simple illusion was happening here, something that any magician could perform – suddenly something totally absurd happens, something that defies the logic of the situation itself, and makes a mockery of the whole performance, and the whole concept of magic...That is, the trick was never about turning a stick into a serpent. That’s just a silly bit of smoke and mirrors. The trick was to get inside of the trick, reconfigure it, and somehow use its variables to produce an outcome that was actually impossible, but somehow happening. That only God could do.

Rabbi Mark Borovitz, Finding Yourself and Recovery in Torah, p. 98

The Torah says that Pharaoh’s heart stiffened; the exact translation is “got stronger.” Many people question whether this is a setup. Does God set Pharaoh up to fail? This line of reasoning leads many people to say that their failures are divinely ordained and therefore not their fault. I would like to offer a different perspective: perhaps God does not want us to draw near simply because we are desperate and beaten down. When we reach up only in times of trouble, as soon as we are strong again, we will rebel against the authority that we, erroneously, believe has enslaved us. Imagine, our thinking can get so topsy-turvy that we believe that God is enslaving us.

Rabbi Shai Held, The Heart of Torah, volume 1, location 2688, Kindle edition

It is not surprising, then, that the prophet Ezekiel imagines Pharaoh insolently declaring, “The Nile is mine; I made it for myself” (Ezek. 29:3). Pharaoh’s statement is the most dramatic denial possible of the fact that he is dependent, that as powerful as he is, he is still a creature, created by and dependent on God. Another midrash imagines Pharaoh disdainfully announcing: “I have no need of God; I created myself” (Midrash Ha-Gadol to Exod. 5:2). I myself am God, Pharaoh implies, and I therefore have no obligations to anything or anyone besides myself. The midrashic Pharaoh is an extreme, even caricatured case. But you don’t need to be Pharaoh to struggle with gratitude—you just need to be human. Very few of us are either brazen or delusional enough to claim that we created ourselves, or that we made the world that sustains us. And yet in smaller, less dramatic ways, many of us resist and struggle against admitting just how dependent and vulnerable we really are—against admitting, in other words, just how much we owe. Pharaoh embodies that problem at its ugliest and most frightening extreme.

URJ, The Torah: A Women's Commentary, p. 935, Kindle edition

Linguistically speaking, the contrast could not be more pointed: the Hebrew narrative employs the same verb (avod) for the two counterposed activities: “work as a slave” to Pharaoh, and “worship” God.

RA & USCJ, Etz Chayim: Torah and Commentary, p. 361

It is easier to augment a plague than to end one.

Rabbi Shefa Gold, Torah Journeys, p. 67

One way that I will open myself to the view of the One is by witnessing the plagues - which represent the manifestation of divine power split off from its wholeness.

URJ, The Torah: A Women's Commentary, p. 936, Kindle edition

For the first time, the pharaoh seems to acknowledge the existence of God.

Louis Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, p. 699, Kindle edition

Pharaoh was like the wicked that cry to God in their distress, and when their fortunes prosper slide back into their old, impious ways.

Rabbi David Kasher, ParshaNut, p. 134-135

Let go of all your logic, and your laws of nature, Rashi is saying. God is beyond all of those things. Forget about your silly magic tricks. Forget about what you thought a miracle looked like. The Creator of All Being has more in store than just burning bushes and splitting seas. You are soon going to witness the melting of reality as you know it, and the shattering of all your concepts. You are leaving the land of the known, and entering into the realm of the impossible, where the only law is God. Get ready, O Pharaoh, King of Egypt. The Exodus is about to begin.

Abarbanel, cited in Carasik, The Commentator's Torah: Exodus, p. 56

The etymology of the word, 'distinction,' or 'redeem,' implies that from this moment the Israelites ceased to serve the Egyptians as slaves.

RA & USCJ, Etz Chayim: Torah and Commentary, p. 367

Pharaoh's words can be punctuated to read, 'The Lord is righteous and so am I, but my people are wicked.' In other words, perhaps Pharaoh is trying to excuse himself, saying, 'Don't blame me! I would have let the Israelites go, but my people would not have let me.'