Audio Summaries of the daily Chumash portions In loving memory of Ousher Zelig ben Myer HaLevi Z”L

To sponsor an episode please visit: https://itistaught.com/support-this-project/To get the daily chumash summaries in your email click here https://substack.com/profile/182692001-sarede-rachel-switzer?utm_source=profile-page.Subscribe on SpotifySubscribe on Apple PodcastsPlease consider leaving a review on the platform of your choice! For comments and inquiries, email [email protected]

Moshe's Mission Begins

Moshe had promised his father in law Yitro (here called Yeter*) that he would not leave Midian without his permission. So he requests permission from Yitro to go back to Egypt to check up on his brethren and see if they are still alive. Yitro tells him to go in peace.

*Side note, Yitro had seven names: Reuel, Yeter, Yitro, Keni, Chovav, Chever and Putiel.

Hashem tells Moshe that he should return to Egypt now since Datan and Aviram (the two men that had tried to get Moshe executed) had lost everything they owned, so were thus like dead.

So Moshe takes his sons and wife and mounts them on a donkey* and they travel to Egypt. He also brings his staff.

*Side note, this was the same donkey Avraham had traveled on to perform the binding of Yitzchak and it is the same donkey that King Moshiach will travel on.

G-d tells Moshe to bear in mind that his sole purpose for traveling to Egypt is to show wonders to Pharaoh in order to ask him to let the Israelites out of Egypt, and G-d reiterates that Pharaoh will refuse him. The wonders G-d is referring to here are not the three signs that G-d already showed Moshe (the staff turning into a snake, the tsarras and the Nile turning into blood) since these were meant to help the Israelites believe in Moshe, not for Pharaoh. The wonders here are an allusion to later wonders which G-d is empowering Moshe with now to use in the future.

G-d tells Moshe to tell Pharaoh on His behalf that G-d's firstborn son is Israel. With this, G-d was sealing his stamp of approval on the sale of the rights of the firstborn from Esav to Yaakov.

He instructs Moshe furthermore to say to Pharaoh that He wishes that his firstborn son (i.e. Israel) be released so that he can serve Him and that if Pharaoh refuses to comply, G-d will kill Pharaoh's firstborn son*.

*Side note, the plague of the firstborn was actually the last and not the first of the plagues. G-d mentions it first as it is the most severe and he was hoping that maybe Pharaoh would thus be scared into repentance.

On the way to Egypt, Moshe and his family stop at an inn, and an angel appears and tries to kill Moshe, swallowing him like a snake, from his head to his thighs and then from his feet until his male organ. This was a punishment for Moshe delaying the circumcision of his son Eliezer. In a Braisa, Rav Yose defends Moshe saying that a baby takes three days to recover from a circumcision and traveling would have been dangerous for him during that time, so Moshe did not want to delay his holy mission by circumcising his son. However Rav Yose's defense did not hold in this case as the inn was very close to Egypt and the remainder of the journey would not have posed a danger to Eliezer, so Moshe should have circumcised him, considering that he took time to make arrangements to stay at the inn.

Moshe's wife Tzipporah understood that this is why the angel had come so she quickly circumcises Eliezer and throws his foreskin on the ground in front of either Moshe or the angel (there are different interpretations) and declares about the child, "You are a blood husband to me!", meaning to say that it was because of that child that the angel had come to kill her husband. The angel relaxes it's grip on Moshe and Tzipporah now realizes that Moshe's death sentence wasn't final but rather she averted it through the circumcision. Thus Onkelos translates Tzipporah's forthcoming statement that a "husband of blood because of circumcision" here refers to the blood of the circumcision, and how the blood of the circumcision saved her husband from death.

G-d speaks to Aaron and tells him to go out and meet Moshe. He goes to the Mountain of G-d and meets Moshe and kisses him. Moshe tells Aaron everything that occurred, what G-d had commanded him to do and the signs that He gave Moshe to perform.

Moshe and Aaron gather all the "elders" (see previous post re who these elders were) together. Aaron retells everything that occurred to Moshe and Moshe performs the signs in front of the entire nation. The Israelites believe it all and know that G-d is with them in their suffering and they bow and prostate themselves.

Get full access to Sarede’s Substack at sarede.substack.com/subscribe