D'var Torah by Dr. Kalman Stein, Head of School
Dear Hebrew Academy Community:
Two weeks ago, reflecting on Yehuda’s vigorous defense of his brother Binyamin when it seemed that he was about to be enslaved in Egypt, I wrote about Yehuda’s sense of responsibility both to his father and to his brother and about Hebrew Academy’s goal to help our students develop a sense of responsibility for Medinat Yisrael and for the Jewish People. A salient theme of this week’s Parasha, Parashat Shemot, is Areivut, the idea that all Jews are responsible for one another.
We read of the midwives, Shifra and Pu’ah, whom the Gemara tells us were actually Yocheved and Miriam, the mother and sister of Moshe, who refused to follow Pharaoh’s command to kill the newborn males. A bit later in the Parasha we find Miriam watching her little brother floating in his basket and stepping up to find him a wetnurse who Chazal tell us was actually his mother. Most famously, of course, we see Moshe leave the royal palace to defend a Hebrew slave who was being beaten by his Egyptian taskmaster.
Rashi suggests that ויגדל משה ויצא אל אחיו וירא בסבלתם—simply translated as “When Moshe grew up, he went out to his brethren and observed their suffering,” actually indicates that Moshe achieved greatness—גדולה—because he left the palace and chose to intervene in his brethren’s burdens. Similarly, when Moshe sees the Burning Bush and leaves the path to look at it more closely, the Torah tells us וירא ה" כי סר לראות, the plain translation of which is that God saw that Moshe had left the path to see this wondrous sight. The Midrash, however, explains that God had chosen Moshe for this encounter and for his role as the leader of Bnai Yisrael because earlier, back in Egypt, he had diverged from the expected path of a young prince and gone to seek out his suffering people. Moshe, thus, achieved greatness and a unique relationship with the Almighty because he felt and acted upon his sense of responsibility for his fellow Jews.
Dr. Kalman Stein
Head of School
