Parshat Shemot

This Dvar Torah was taken from the www.ulpanor.com

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This Shabbat we will read the first Torah Portion "Shemot"  

in the book of Exodus.  The Torah tells us how the children of Israel multiply in Egypt.

Threatened by their growing numbers, Pharaoh enslaves them and orders the Hebrew midwives to kill all male babies at birth.They do not comply, and he commands his people to cast the Hebrew babies into the Nile.

A child is born to Yocheved, and placed in a basket on the river, while the boy's sister, Miriam, stands watching from afar. Pharaoh's daughter discovers the boy, raises him as her son, and names him Moshe. (Taken from water).

 As a young man, Moshe leaves the palace and discovers the hardship of his brethren. He sees an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, and kills the Egyptian.

The next day he sees two Jews fighting; when he admonishes them, they reveal his deed of the previous day, and Moses is forced to flee to Midian.

There he rescues Jethro's daughters, marries one of them - Tzipporah, and becomes a shepherd of his father-in-law's flocks.

G?d appears to Moshe in a burning bush at the foot of Mount Sinai, and instructs him to go to Pharaoh and demand: "Let My people go, so that they may serve Me."

Moshe claims he is not worthy of this mission. 

And Moses said unto God: 'Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?' (Exodus 3, 14)

Then G-d tells Moshe to tell a certain phrase to the People of Israel:

Go, and gather the elders of Israel together, and say unto them: The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, hath appeared unto me, saying:

I have surely remembered you, and seen that which is done to you in Egypt.

It appears that there was a tradition among the People of Israel that whoever would come with the words "PAKOD PAKAD'TI ETTKHEM..." - "I have surely remembered you", will be indeed the savior of the People of Israel from the Egyptian slavery.

However, nobody understood what was the big deal in telling that phrase. Anybody could do that!!!

How could it be a sign of the SAVIOR? 

But now, when Moshe came with the above phrase to the People of Israel, it changed the entire perspective and the understanding of its significance.

We need to remember that Moshe had a speech problem.

As he describes himself in the next Torah portion:

But Moshe said to the Lord, "If the Israelites will not listen to me, why would Pharaoh listen to me, since I speak with faltering lips?" (Exodus 6, 12).

Actually Moshe was not able to close his lips and pronounce those consonants that require lip closure.

These consonants are: 

B, P, V, M, W

Thus, normally Moshe would not be able to say: PAKODPAKAD'TI ...

But now People of Israel witnessed a miracle of Moshe being able to pronounce perfectly the above phrase.

Therefore they came to believe that Moshe indeed was the messenger of G-d and their savior. 

Shabbat Shalom, 

Yoel & Orly

www.ulpanor.com