This week's Torah portion begins the story of the Exodus from Egypt. Though Passover is only celebrated in April next year, the cycle of Torah readings always puts the Passover reading several months ahead of the actual holiday.
Moses is the central character, and his origin story is packed with symbolic meaning. One of the most interesting aspects is how he is nurtured by women in every possible role: the midwives who save Jewish boys; the mother who hides her son in a basket; the sister who watches over him; the bathing princess who takes pity on him, and raises him as her own, while giving him to a nurse (who is actually his mother). Here we see almost every aspect of womanhood.
We don't learn who the male influences may be in Moses's life until he meets his father-in-law, who goes on to play an outsized role. It's an interesting aspect of the story. Moses, though married, would often strike a lonely figure; his wife often seemed distant from him. Yet he owed so much to the women in his life
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This week's Torah portion includes several laws about conduct in civic and personal life, the common theme of which is boundaries -- setting bounds to what one may do at home, at work, and even in the battlefield.
One noteworthy passage concerns Amalek, the evil nation that attacked the Children of Israel as they made their Exodus from slavery to freedom. Deuteronomy 25:17-19 commands Jews to obliterate Amalek's memory.
The South African government accused Israel of genocide on the basis of a story about Amalek in the Book of Samuel, in which King Saul was commanded to wipe out the entire evil Amalekite nation.
Because Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quoted this week's portion -- "Remember what Amalek did to you" (25:17), the South African government claimed he was commanding soldiers to commit genocide.
It was an absurd and malevolent misreading of the Bible and of Jewish tradition. The commandment, as observed by Jews today, is to remember the evil of Amalek and fight ...
