¨Names¨
Exodus 1:1-6:1
Isaiah 27:6-28:13 & 29:22-23 (Ashkenzhi)
Jeremiah 1:1-2:3 (Sephardic)
Acts 7:17-29 (Messianic)
As with every portion, something always speaks to us in a special way. In this week’s Torah portion there was a certain scripture that jumped out to me almost at the end. In Exodus 5:20 after Moses and Aaron speak to Pharaoh and he decides to make work for the israelites even more arduous, the foremen complain and he takes it all for some sort of political ploy to get out of doing work. As a side note, from an administrative point of view the Pharaoh was horrible with human resources. The foremen of Israel say to Aaron and Moses something which sounds so peculiar, “ may HaShem look upon you and judge”. They were convinced they were causing more evil to the people of Israel. The
In the haftrah we see something similar when it mentions Ephraim in Isaiah and how Ephraim’s idolatry will come to an end. Their wine drinking will cease.
The common theme is that sometimes we do right before Yah and then things seem not to go well and then the accusing and unfaithful spirit comes and says, see you would be much better of if you continued as you were or of you had not done Yah’s will. We see that the evil or wickedness prevails and continues to engross itself like in the case of Pharaoh taking more pleasure in making life more difficult and in mocking Ha Shem, but as R' Bachya says, "sGod may bring good fortune to the wicked in order to let their punishments accumulate for the future, and he may let the innocent suffer so they will receive greater reward later on" . This is something to keep in mind so we do not loose our footing in our faith.
