Ta Shma

One of the Torah's central projects is to turn memory into empathy and moral responsibility. Appealing to our experience of defenselessness in Egypt, the Torah seeks to transform us into people who see those who are vulnerable and exposed rather than looking past them.

Why are sections in this week's parashah out of order? Why did the parashah specifically begin with the story of Yitro even though, chronologically, it comes after the next section? The Torah is preemptively answer two deep questions: is there wisdom outside of the Torah? and does everyone hate the Jews?

You can't leave Egypt - not really - until you discover that you can take responsibility for your life and affect your own fate. The Israelites, slaves for so long, trained to be passive in their interactions with the world, need to learn in this week's parashah to be active and take their fate into their own hands.

The first parashiot of Sefer Shemot set up two sides to a cosmic conflict: Pharaoh, the side of chaos and death; and God, the side of order and life. Rav Shai will read the plague narrative through this lens and see if there is a deeper meaning to these signs and portents than merely revenge.

Two of Judaism's most basic texts are marked by the same oddity: they tell a story whose ending has been lopped off. Why does the Torah and the Haggadah used at Pesach miss out the last part of the story, the coming into the land of Canaan?

What are the qualities of leadership according to the Torah? In the first parashah of Moses' story, we see some clear characteristics that mark Moses out as the future leader of the Israelites.

Judaism generally urges us to be agents, to be active rather than passive, to take responsibility for our lives and for the world. But in this week's parashah, Joseph learns an even more valuable lesson: when to exercise restraint.

Ask a reasonably knowledgeable Jew, and they'll probably tell you that there are three cardinal sins in Judaism, three sins you should rather die than commit: idolatry, sexual immorality, and murder. But according to some of our most influential halakhic scholars, derived in part from this week's parashah, astonishingly it appears that there is a fourth: embarrassment.

It is a mandate as easy to express as it can be hard to fulfill: we are responsible for the fate of others. Judah learns this lesson the hard way in this week's parashah. Like Cain, he is not able to be his brother's keeper; but he is able to become his brother's brother.

We are, all of us, afraid of the dark. It is only natural to think that the darkness is overwhelming and that nothing we do can make a difference to the world. But Rav Shai teaches in this Dvar Torah that Chanukah serves to remind us that we are required only a mitigate the darkness, not to eliminate it.