Thursday, January 11, 2018

D'var for Va'eira!

This week's d'var is written by Ben Katzman.


In this week's Torah portion, God promises Moses the land of Israel for his people. Moses freaks out and says he can't do it because of a speech impediment. God tells Moses Aaron will be there and that when he gets to Egypt God will harden Pharaoh's heart and God will show him that he means business. Moses meets up with Aaron and they meet Pharaoh. He doesn't believe them so Aaron turns his staff into a snake. The Egyptians do it too but theirs are swallowed by Aaron's staff. Pharaoh is uninformed. Then the plagues start. Blood fills the Nile, then the frogs come. Pharaoh wants them gone so Moses and God make all the frogs die. God hardens Pharaoh's heart and Pharaoh gets mad about having dead frogs. After the frogs come the lice, then the wild beasts come, then animals die, then boils, then hail. The parshah ends with the seventh plague.

Wednesday, January 3, 2018

D'var For Shemot!

This week we start the book of Exodus with parshat Shemot.

The children of Israel multiply in Egypt. Threatened by their growing numbers, Pharaoh enslaves them and orders the Hebrew midwives, Shifrah and Puah, to kill all male babies at birth. When they do not comply, he commands his people to cast the Hebrew babies into the Nile.
A child is born to Yocheved, the daughter of Levi, and her husband, Amram, and placed in a basket on the river, while the baby’s sister, Miriam, stands watch from afar. Pharaoh’s daughter discovers the boy, raises him as her son, and names him Moses.
As a young man, Moses 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 Moses 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.” Moses’ brother, Aaron, is appointed to serve as his spokesman. In Egypt, Moses and Aaron assemble the elders of Israel to tell them that the time of their redemption has come. The people believe; but Pharaoh refuses to let them go, and even intensifies the suffering of Israel.
Moses returns to G‑d to protest: “Why have You done evil to this people?” G‑d promises that the redemption is close at hand.

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