This is where we ended last week. How would you summarize what we know so far?
But the more they were oppressed, the more they increased and spread out, so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites. Ruthlessly they made life bitter for them with harsh labor building the cities and hard tasks in the fields. The king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives [who helped women at the birth of their babies], one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, saying, “When you deliver the Hebrew women, look at the birthstool: if it is a boy, kill him; if it is a girl, let her live.”
- What have we learned so far about the current life of the Israelites in Egypt?
- What is the king of Egypt asking the Hebrew midwives to do?
Egyptians have a problem. They want to make the Israelites fewer. That is a bad strategy and bad for Pharaoh because the Israelites do the hard work. And eventually they will be extinct.
The midwives, fearing God, did not do as the king of Egypt had told them; they let the boys live. And God dealt well with the midwives; and the people multiplied and increased greatly. Then Pharaoh charged all the Egyptian people, saying, “Every boy that is born you shall throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.”
- According the the text, why did the midwives save the Israelite boys? Maybe, because God would punish them.
- Are there any other reasons why you think the midwives saved the Israelite boys? Because killing your own kind. Unreasonable that they would be part of a plan to make yourselves extinct.
- Why do you think God dealt well with the midwives but didn't set the Israelite slaves free? God Doesn't do all the work for the Israelites. Later on, God does set them free. God is giving them a few more opportunities to save themselves. I wonder if God was waiting for the Egyptians to do the "right" thing. Maybe some Egyptians will do the right thing.
A commentary on the Torah teaches us that not only did the midwives disobey Pharaoh, they dared to do deeds of kindness for the children they saved. In behalf of poor mothers, the midwives would go to the houses of rich mothers and collect water and food, which they gave to the poor mothers.
- What do you think this commentary teaches us? Some of the Egyptians helped out the Israelites with small acts of kindness defying Pharaoh.
(Ib. 2, 1) And there went a man of the house of Levi. "He went for the advice of his daughter." We are taught: Amran was considered the greatest man of his generation and as soon as Pharaoh decreed that every son who is born shall cast into the river, Amram said to himself: "In vain do we get married." He therefore divorced his wife. The rest of the people following his example did likewise.
Thereupon his daughter said to him: "Father your decree is even worse than Pharaoh's; for he issued a decree against sons, but you have issued a decree against both sons and daughters; Pharaoh's decree affects merely this world but your decree will affect this world and the future world. As to the decree of Pharaoh, the wicked, whether it will endure or not, we do not know. But as to those who are righteous the decree will surely endure. Amram immediately remarried his wife, whereupon the rest of the people also remarried their wives.
- What did the daughter teach her father?
- How did Miriam's bravery lead to the birth of Moses?
- What do you think it would take to have that kind of bravery?
- What happened to Moses?
- Who raised Moses from birth to when he was weaned at age 3 or so?
- Why do you think the Pharaoh's daughter decides to keep Moses?
A story from the Rabbinic Midrash:
When the her handmaids saw that Pharaoh's daughter wished to save Moses, they said to her, "Our lady, in the world's practice when a king issues a decree, even if the whole world does not obey it, his own children and the members of his household do obey it. yet you would violate your father's decree!" At that, Gavriel came down and smote them to the ground [leaving the princess but one handmaid]. "
Midrashim from The Book of Legends, Sefer Ha-Aggadah. Legends from the Talmud and Midrash edited by Hayim Nahman Bialik and Yehoshua Hana Ravnitzky, translated by William G. Braude, page 60
- What are the Rabbis telling us about the risk that Pharaoh's daughter takes?
- We have not read anything in the text so far in the book of Shemot about the role of God in the life of the Israelites. What are the Rabbis telling us about how God watched over the Israelites?
The story of the Exodus is about the saving of the Israelites from slavery. It is also the story of three siblings who we will follow throughout this course, Miriam, Aaron, and Moses, and other biblical characters.
- What have we learned so far about Moses?
- What have we learned so far about Miriam?
- What have we learned so far about Aaron?
- What have we learned about Pharaoh's daughter?
- What have we learned about Pharaoh?