With opening of Shemos, a new chapter of history

The opening chapter of Sefer Shemos records a dramatic change: “There arose a new king over Egypt.”

With the new king we commence new themes, new thoughts, new challenges.

The familiar faces that began with Creation and introduced characters and countries — Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, the Flood and the Tower of Babel, Canaan and Pharaonic Egypt, the family of Abraham with Lot and the Pillar of Salt, the patriarchs and the matriarchs — are over.

History now becomes really serious. Man is now an adult, no longer a child stepping gingerly into events and experiences. The chief character is Mighty Moses, and the Jewish people are no longer merely a colorful family but a nation drawn by a national destiny.

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Life was tough in Egypt for baby boys. Girls were allowed to live but boys were to be thrown into the Nile. To confirm whether a baby was male or female the midwives looked at the ovnayim, literally “the stones” (Ex. 1:16).

Ovnayim is sometimes translated as “birthstool,” but the word never again appears in this sense in the Tanach. Indeed it only appears once more in the Bible, in Jeremiah 18:4, where it means a potter’s wheel.

The Midrash regards it as “the place where the baby turns” (the womb). This seems to indicate that the womb is where the future is not only determined as male or female in the normal way but where every aspect of the child’s development is determined.

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Is the name “Moshe” passive (bearing the meaning, “the one who was drawn out of the waters”) or is it active, (“the one who draws out (his people”)?

The Biblical context appears to favor the first view, because the king’s daughter says, “ki min hamayim meshitihu (I drew him out of the water).”

Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch is unwilling to leave it at that but adds a further aspect. According to Rabbi Hirsch, what Pharaoh’s daughter’s words imply is, “Moses must never forget that I drew him out … and because he was drawn out of the River Nile, he is to be a deliverer of others.”

How aptly this illustrates Jewish ethics: The person who was once poor must alleviate poverty; the person who was once sick must ease others’ pain; the person who was once homeless must help others to find a home; the person who was once degraded must aid everyone else and never tolerate racism; the person who once lacked freedom must never rest until everyone else is free.