Rabbi Angel writes about Moses’ great message for the Israelites, which they were not receptive to. As he observes, they were exhausted from their bondage and were basically unable to accept the message as realistic. The text uses the phrase “kotser ruach”, which is understood in different ways – short of breath, gasping under the pressure of their labor. They were psychologically unprepared to listen.
Rabbi Sacks writes of humor in the Torah: when humanity attempts to defy heaven, God laughs. He reads humor into Pharaoh’s magicians, who could not produce lice with their sorcery, while the lice continued to infest everyone, claiming that it was “the finger of God.” In response, God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. Satire is an essential aspect of understanding some of the plagues – wherein those forces of nature represented gods of the Egyptian pantheon.
Professor Schneider writes about an interesting dichotomy. When Moses was born, he was described as beautiful. The sages (Sotah 12a) compare this to the light that God saw as good. Yet Moses described himself to God as slow of speech and slow of tongue. Professor Schneider considers different understandings of what this means.
The book of Exodus begins with a statement that the Israelites have become too numerous, and that we (Egypt) need to do something about that. James Loeffler raises the question of whether Pharaoh is evil or simply misguided. What is the real reason for Pharaoh’s fear? He cites Kohelet, who “warned against pretensions to wisdom that lead to self-destruction.” The Hebrew text is not exactly clear.
Moses refuses the mission of leading the Israelites to freedom 4 times. In the second one, he says “But they will not believe me. They will not listen to me. The will say, ‘God did not appear to you.’” The first reason is interesting because God has already assured him that they would listen. The sages also consider whether Moses is guilty of lashon hara, for the sign of his hand turning white. Then they are concerned about Moses’ sense of his own inadequacy