Renamed
Shemot, both the Parsha and the book, reveals with life-altering lessons of freedom how we can realize our enormous potential, fulfill our destiny, and find our unique role within the Jewish people.
This week we begin a brand-new book, called Shemot. This book is where we transition from the book of Bereisheet/Genesis which focuses on individuals, to the book of Exodus/Shemot which tells about the formation of the Jewish nation as a unified whole. As I often comment, the title Shemot seems ironic, since the names of many prominent individuals are omitted or modified at the beginning of the book.
For example, Vayikach ish mibeit Levi vayikach et bat Levi, A certain man from the house of Levi married a daughter of Levi, (referring to Moses’ renowned parents, Amram and Yocheved); And the woman (Yocheved) conceived and had a son…and his sister (Miriam) stood from afar to see what would happen to him (Moses); The daughter of Pharaoh (Bitya) saw the boy (Moses)….and his sister (Miriam) said to Pharaoh’s daughter (Bitya)...”; The young girl (Miriam) went to call the mother of the child (Yocheved)…and the woman (Yocheved) took the child (Moses)…and the boy (Moses) grew and she (Yocheved) brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter (Bitya)…” In other instances, their names are changed to “code names,” for example, Shifra (Yocheved) and Puah (Miriam), and God (Eheyeh Asher Eheyeh)
Rashi explains the significance of the title Shemot by quoting Isaiah, who compared the Jewish people to constellations of stars: their vast numbers are immense, but God gives a name to every star, recognizing the importance of each one. In the same way, within our nation, each person may appear small and insignificant, but every individual is a huge mass of innate potential.
It may seem counterintuitive that Shemot begins by omitting names, but I believe this beginning communicates a powerful message: that before we became a nation, we had to push a reset button, so to speak. We had to lose our names and then regain them from a completely different perspective.
Namely (pardon the pun!), the beginning of the book of Shemot/Names is about how we relinquished our old identities as lone individuals and learned to become newly distinctive individuals within the context of a unified and special nation.
And I think the challenge of this transition also explains why Parshat Shemot ends in a failed Exodus, which hardly seems the way to inspire nation-building. God gives Moses a few mini-miracles to do (they were actually more like magic tricks, easily replicated by Egyptian kindergarteners according to the Midrash), which not only fail to sway Pharaoh but make the situation much worse. Most of the Parsha is about Moses’ disastrous and wasted efforts, which end with an exasperated Moses complaining to God, hatzel lo hitzalta et amecha, you didn’t save your people (as you promised!) Why did God waste time with these fruitless endeavors and not simply save us from our plight?
However, I believe this is precisely the point of our Parsha: despite conventional thinking about our experience in Egypt, the function of the Exodus was not for God to save us. If that were the purpose, God certainly had the power to liberate us quickly and efficiently.
Instead of rescuing us, God’s objective was to make the Exodus experience a complex process that enabled each Jew to learn the lesson of freedom: that we do not need God to save us from our problems, whether individually or as a nation. We did not need God to swoop down like Superman coming to Lois Lane’s rescue to free us from Pharoah’s enslavement. We needed to learn the lesson that if we believe in the Jewish God, we believe that our problems are solutions in disguise. To paraphrase the Talmud in Mesechet Megilla, hikdim refuah l’maka, God creates the solution to a problem before the problem ever arises. This is to say that our problems have solutions embedded within them. If we cannot accept our circumstances as they are right now, if our mindset tells us that we must be saved from our hardships, we will become enslaved to our dissatisfaction and frustration. But if we see our struggles as opportunities to accomplish greater things and discover our unique capacities, we will become liberated from those problems and free to change our circumstances for the better.
Therefore, our path to becoming a unified Jewish nation was the collective result of each person grappling individually with the step-by-step process of liberation from slavery.
The Mishna teaches that during our Passover seder, B’chol dor vador, chayav adam lirot et atzmo keilu hu yatza mimitzraim, in every generation, everyone is obligated to look at themselves as if they [just now] left Egypt. Some have the custom (based on the Rambam’s phrasing lihraot et atzmo, to exhibit the Exodus) to carry out that mandate by marching around the table with matzah on their backs, to physically recreate the Exodus. However, that is a far too literal and simplistic interpretation. I believe this teaching is telling us to put ourselves in the shoes of our ancestors and look at our own problems as opportunities that open doors to a more exciting and successful future. This perspective is what enables us to be free on Passover, and it provides a life-altering lesson to carry with us the entire year. And this is how each of us can realize our enormous potential, fulfill our destiny, and find our unique role within the Jewish people.