Shabbat Shalom Weekly (copy)

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Torah Portion:  Shmot

Make Your Effort and God Will Do The Rest
by Sarah Maddali

This week’s Torah portion relays Moses’s miraculous rescue after being placed in the Nile by his mother, Yocheved, to try to save him from the evil decree issued by the Egyptian king, Pharaoh, to kill all the Jewish baby boys. The Torah says that Pharaoh’s daughter, Batya, went down to bathe in the Nile, saw a basket among the reeds and she took it (2:5). A famous Torah commentary, Rashi, comments that she stretched out her hand and her arm grew many cubits so that she could reach the basket.

Why would Batya stretch out her hand if she knew her arm was not long enough to reach the basket? Why would someone perform an act in futility? And why would God create such an astonishing miracle of Batya’s arm growing instead of something more subtle, like a wind blowing the basket closer to Batya, for example?

Lesson:

Batya could have easily made numerous excuses as to why it was not worth it to try to retrieve the basket. However, by extending her arm, she extended herself and her limitations. Often in life, we are confronted with different situations or opportunities that seem beyond our scope of what we can handle or accomplish. We have excuse after excuse as to why our efforts will result in failure – so what’s the point in trying?

Batya recognized something very beautiful: when we go beyond what we think we are capable of, we break through the very barriers that stand in our way of success. The actual act of extending ourselves allows for personal growth, allowing us to tap into reservoirs of potential that often times we did not know existed. When Batya extended her arm beyond what it was capable of, it resulted in growth. And by God allowing Batya to be successful in retrieving Moses’s basket, we can learn that when we push ourselves as far as we can go, God in turn will help ‘extend our hands’ even further.

Exercise: Take on something that you have wanted to do but have not because you thought it was too difficult. This could be connecting with an old friend after a fallout, learning something new, or taking on a new project. Know that by making the effort, you have already come out ahead, regardless of the outcome.

 

Redemption Song
by Rabbi Ari Kahn
Very suddenly, the servitude that had been predicted so many years earlier, in the covenant forged between God and Avraham beneath the dark and ominous evening sky, had come to fruition — but with an unforeseen twist: The Egyptian slave-masters began to imagine that their Israelite slaves were subhuman and had no rights whatsoever — not even the right to exist. A “final solution” had been set in motion. All the male children would be put to death and the females would be used as slaves of the most sordid kind, bringing an abrupt end to the family of Avraham before the second half of the covenant, redemption, could become a reality.

The genocidal program was in full swing, but before very long heroes emerged, brave women who refused to be a part of the Egyptian killing machine. These women defied the powerful Pharaoh and feared only the unseen, all-powerful God of their faith.

A close and careful reading of the first two chapters of the Book of Shmot reveals that it is the women who lead. Midwives and mothers, Moshe’s sister Miriam and the daughter of Pharaoh: An overwhelming percentage of this story’s protagonists are women. While the men slave away in the dismal present tense, the women insure the continuity of the Jewish People. With an acute sense of their past, they look toward the future and the great destiny they know awaits.

This preponderance of female figures was not lost on the sages of later generations, who articulated a foundational principle that has both philosophical and, quite possibly, halachic ramifications: “The redemption from Egypt was in the merit of righteous women.”

The subsequent chapters are full of wonder and fury; eventually, the great moment arrived, and the Israelites were freed. They spent their last hours in Egypt amassing the spoils of their erstwhile oppressors, in fulfillment of God’s promise to Avraham that they would leave with great wealth. However, one man was in pursuit of a different treasure. He, too, sought to fulfill a promise, but of a different sort: Moshe spent his last moments in the land of his birth seeking out the remains of Yosef, in order to fulfill the promise that had been made not to leave him behind when the redemption came. Moshe, too, had been a prince of Egypt, only to rejoin his brothers later in life, and he was determined to fulfill Yosef’s dying wish — to return to his homeland.

But when Moshe was unable to locate Yosef’s remains, he sought out the authoritative source of information. There was only one person, a vestige of the previous generations, who knew exactly where to find Yosef’s remains: Serach, the daughter of Asher,(3) the keeper of secrets, the repository of tradition, the bridge across the generations.

What was it about Serach, more than anyone else, that prepared her for this role? There is a rabbinic teaching that traces Serach’s unique talents back to a touching scene that had transpired years before: (4) When the brothers returned from Egypt with the shocking news that Yosef was still alive, no one knew how to break this news to their elderly, fragile father Yaakov. They decide to entrust Yaakov’s granddaughter, a young girl named Serach, with the delicate task – and with good reason.

While Yaakov stood in prayer, Serach sang to him: “Can it be so? Is Yosef truly in Egypt? This and more: Children were born to him, Menashe and Efraim!”

Serach knew the words that would liberate Yaakov from his pain and suffering, and she had the sensitivity to deliver the message in a way that her frail and bereft grandfather could accept. Similarly, years later, it was Serach who showed Moshe how to liberate Yosef from the depths of the Nile, just as she alone knew the words and tune that would liberate the entire people from their slavery. As she grew into adulthood and then into old age, she never forgot the tune she had sung to her grandfather. She retained that sensitivity and kept her ear attuned to the melody that was the key to Yaakov’s personal liberation. As an adult, she taught that same song of freedom to Yaakov’s descendants. Through it, they, too, knew that the redemption that had been promised so long ago would soon be a reality. From Serach, they – and we – learned the song of redemption.

For a more in-depth analysis see: http://arikahn.blogspot.co.il/2015/01/audio-and-essays-parashat-shmot.html

NOTES

1. Shmot 4:31.   2. Yalkut Shimoni: Lech Lecha Remez 64.

3. Tosefta Sotah 4:7.    4. Midrash HaGadol, cited in Torah Shleimah page 863 section 88 and note 88.

Show Your Gratitude
by Nesanel Yoel Safran 

From this week’s Torah portion: 

Nobody wants to be an ingrate. In this week’s Torah portion we learn about one of the biggest ingrates of all time — the evil king, Pharaoh. Despite the fact that Joseph saved his country from famine, he ungratefully turned Joseph’s descendants into his slaves. The Torah way is to show gratitude to those who have done us good.

In our story, a girl gets an eye-opening peek at the power of gratitude.

“Thank you for coming with me tonight. I don’t know if I could manage it alone,” Linda’s grandmother said as the girl helped the frail, elderly woman out of the yellow cab and into the cold, rainy night.

“No problem, Grams,” Linda said as the two of them walked toward the entrance of the catering hall. “But I don’t understand, since you’re feeling so not well, why you need so much to go to this bat mitzvah party? Is this family your best friends or something?”

The older woman just smiled and said, “Speaking of bat mitzvahs, Linda, did you send out thank-you notes for all those beautiful gifts you received for yours last month?”

The girl scrunched up her face uncomfortably. “Um, not really. I know I should, Grams, but it’s such a hassle to do — hand writing so many notes — y’know what I mean? Besides, it’s been so long that it’s really hard for me to put my mind on it…”

Just then, they entered the beautifully decorated hall. Linda expected the hosts to run right up to them. After all, they must be really close friends if her unwell grandmother put in such a huge effort to come. But she was surprised to see that the hostess just gave grandma a faint smile and quick ‘hello,’ like she hardly even knew her, and then fluttered off to greet other guests.

They sat more or less unnoticed at one of the tables until it was time to leave and walk back out into the rain and dark.

When they finally got back home, Linda couldn’t hold back her curiosity any longer.

“Grams, you never told me how you knew those people or why it was so important for you to go there tonight?”

“Well, Linda … I’ll tell you. When I first came to this country about 60 years ago, I was an orphan, all alone in the world. I didn’t know anyone here and I was so poor that I owned hardly more than the clothes on my back. One woman — the grandmother of that bat mitzvah girl tonight — took me under her wing and helped me put my life back together.”

“I didn’t see you talking to any grandmother tonight.”

“Well, that’s because she passed away more than 20 years ago years ago.”

“I don’t get it, Grams,” Linda said, confused “So why did you bother going?”

“Because even though she’s no longer here, I still owe her a debt of gratitude. I make it my business to attend all of her family’s happy events as a way of honoring her memory and continuing to say ‘thank you’ for what she’d done for me.”

Linda was blown away. Her grandmother was still putting herself out to say ‘thank you’ to the family of someone who had done her a favor 60 years ago!!! What an unbelievable sense of gratitude!

“Linda, is everything all right?” her grandmother asked, noticing Linda’s faraway look.

“Um, yeah, Grams … everything’s fine. But if you don’t mind, I’ve got to run up to my room and do something very important.”

“Oh, yes?”

“Yeah — I’ve got to write and send out all my ‘thank-you’ notes ASAP!”

Discussion Questions

Ages 3-5

Q. How did Linda feel about writing her ‘thank-you’ notes?
A. She didn’t want to put in the effort.

Q. How did she feel in the end?
A. She realized how important it was to show gratitude.

Ages 6-9

Q. What life-lesson do you think Linda learned that night?
A. She’d been apathetic about writing thank-you notes, considering it too much effort, but when she saw how much her grandmother put herself out to show gratitude, she realized that it should be a top priority.

Q. Why is it important to show gratitude?
A. Showing and feeling gratitude is the sign of a spiritually sensitive and unselfish person and helps us to realize how much good we have in our lives.

Ages 10 and Up

Q. Judaism believes that all the good that comes to a person is ultimately from God. If so, why should we show gratitude to people?
A. For one thing, God chooses good people to be His agents to do good in the world, so we should acknowledge them for their goodness. Furthermore, by developing gratitude toward the people who help us, it gives us the ability to feel grateful to God as well.

Q. Should we demand or expect the people we help to be grateful?
A. While it is certainly good for their character if they are, we should be willing to ‘let it go’ if they’re not. We should do good because it’s the right thing to do, without expectations.

 

Quote of the Week
“Once you have distanced yourself from anger, the quality of humility will enter your heart” — Nachmanides

Shabbat Shalom!